Leeds Film Festival - Day 13

L Change the World (Japan) (wiki)

L is one of the principal characters from the popular manga/anime series Death Note. Last year, the first two live action films were screened in Leeds, and, not knowing enough about the series I decided to leave them in favour of other films. Now that I am partway through the first DVD of the series, watching this film is kind of familiar, but not, with an enormous chunk of cat-and-mouse thriller missing from my brain that fills in the blanks between the rest of the anime and the films.

L Change the World is meant purely as a cash-in spin-off to the main Death Note story arc - which is very briefly - a student called Light acquires a Death Note, dropped by a bored death god Ryuk, for fun. Whoevers name is written in the booklet dies in whatever way is described. Light goes on a personal vendetta against all the criminals in the world, and the power gets to him. L is a mysterious detective who is assigned to bringing him to justice, without giving away his face or name. The anime is then a huge game of chess, with considered move against counter move between the two principal players.

Only L makes it through to this film in any major form; Light and Ryuk have cameos only, and the Death Note is burned pretty early on, but not before L condemns himself to a death by writing his own name in it. Why he sets a timer of 23 days, and why he tops himself anyway is left unexplained. He takes on the case of a virus outbreak, where a synthesized fusion of influenza and Ebola is inflicted on a Thailand village. Without an antidote, the virus is not released into the general populous as the owner would have no protection against it themselves, but a scientist is working on one, and many people want a hold of it.

It's a 'fan indulgence' film; I would think that those not familiar with the Death Note canon will become a bit confused about L's weird way of sitting, walking and holding things, and the character relationships that exist at the beginning assume a certain knowledge on the part of the viewer. When I saw it, there was much giggling from the audience; sometimes in light-hearted moments, but more often when it was trying to be serious and ended up just being a little silly. And that's what let it down the most; you couldn't take it seriously enough. 5.5/10

Detroit Metal City (Japan) (wiki)

This is more like it. Take the seriousness of L away and replace it with some hard death metal rock and a lot of laughs, and you get something approaching Detroit Metal City. Negishi is a country boy. Lanky and effeminate with a bowl haircut, he loves to make light, bouncy tunes about love and cuddly things. However, at some point during his time in music school, he ends up the lead singer of an up and coming death metal rock band DMC, unable to leave because of his timid attitude and sadistic boss.

Though he loathes the music he has to sing, when he transforms into his alter-ego - Johannes Krauser II - he becomes a devil-like creature full of hate-fuelled passion and loathing, which is ideal for the stage; the teen followers of the group lap his act up, no matter how gruesome the lyrics are. As with may devout worshippers, they end up considering him a demi-god.

DMC follows Negishi's path through the uncertainty of who he is, trying to win over his death metal-hating sweetheart whilst trying to keep the best of both of his worlds, with a dash of satire thrown in, poking at the way that kids will follow anything when it's cool. It's fast, colourful, crazy and full of laughs, and has received bids from the American film companies to be remade for a western audience. 8/10

My Name is Bruce (US) (wiki)

Bruce Campbell is well-known to horror fans the world over, playing many parts in various flicks including The Evil Dead and Army of Darkness. His most well-known non-horror part was of 'Elvis Presley' in Bubba Ho-Tep. This self-sendup of Bruce the man is directed by 'the Chin' Campbell, where he plays a slimy, drunken version of himself relegated to starring in inferior sequels to his earlier films and living in squalor in a caravan with his alcoholic dog.

In a backwards American town of Good Lick, a rabble of teens go on a rampage through a graveyard and wake the Chinese spirit Guan-Di, guardian of the Chinese labourers lost in the mines and god of Bean Curd. Guan-Di as is usual in these sorts of films, terrorises the people whenever they come close, usually by removing their heads. After seeing Bruce kill off a load of zombies in one of his films, they mistake it for his purpose in life, and bring him under a certain amount of duress, to the village to rid them of the spirit. Bruce is up for a bit of that, but only because he thinks it's all a set-up by his agent, and by the time he's realised the danger he's in, its a bit late.

My Name is Bruce is a great film. I'm not much of a horror fan, but it was clear that the send-ups of both Campbell and the genre as a whole was done with a lot of love and attention, with loads of little back-references to his old films cropping up all over the place, but not so many as a horror novice would not be able to enjoy it - I certainly did. Oh, and Grace Thorsen, who plays Campbells love interest, is gorgeous as well. 8/10

Gachi Boy - Wrestling with a Memory (Japan) (info and trailers)

Igarashi is a high-scoring school prodigy, who unexpectedly turns up at the Hokkaido University Wrestling club with the intention of joining. The club is a man short, since losing their star performer to an uncompromising girlfriend, and the university is threatening to shut them down because frankly, their unconvincing staged 'fights' are rubbish. Igarashi arrives dutifully each day, enthusiastically taking polaroids of everyone and making lots of notes about his new colleagues, but seems to progress little with the training. It isn't until later that the mystery is revealed; Igarashi injured his brain after falling off a bicycle, and every morning he wakes up with no memory of the previous day, his second-class substitute being a bulging notebook of everything he needs to know post accident, which he must read every morning to have a chance at functioning normally.

Gachi Boy manages to be funny, slapstick, and also a little touching; the effect on his father, trying to encourage him to finish his degree, or when the team members are split into those that do know of the situation and those that do not provide real moments of emotion; Igarashi makes the mistake of omitting the fact that the fights are staged, so he gives each fight all he can, which lands him in trouble during the official competition that makes up the conclusion to the film, where not going by the script could end in someone getting hurt. It's all there, and though it drags a little in places, it is solid entertainment. 7.5/10

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And that's the LFF over once more. Looking back over the 100 films I managed to see this year, there seemed to be more middling and duff films than in 2007, maybe because that was a strong year, or perhaps this was a weak one. But there was also many films that were really good, and I hope that I can encourage some readers to go out there and support them. Obviously, I went a little bit mental in the name of blog whoring, but there is a world out there of stories to be told, and it's up to us to look as well as listen.

Leeds Film Festival - Day 12

Yorkshire Short Films Competition

I wasn't sure weather to go see this and decided to after managing to raise my carcass in time. I'm glad I did because they included some of the best short film output of the festival. All these films were made locally. Hovis!

Tale of Teeth - A dark comedy shows the tooth fairy in dire straits. He owes Santa Claus a wad of cash and only has 3 days to get it. Then he realises that he can take teeth directly from childrens' mouths for much higher profit, and the children on Santa's naughty list look like ideal targets. A very student-y feel which made it charmingly rough around the edges, and no less entertaining. Not one to see with your kids though, or they will never go to sleep. 7/10

My Brother Steven - A slice of the lives of an ordinary family trying to bring up an autistic child. Steven throws tantrums and lashes out violently over the smallest things, leading to many stressful days, especially for the parents, and a few bruises for his two sisters who present the film in a home video style. The film shows the difficulties but also the good times when Steven stops being a walking nightmare and functions like any other happy child does. Warmly funny without being sentimental. 7.5/10

You, Me and Captain Longbridge - After the death of his dad a week ago, young Luke 'Stanton' Stanton disappears into his own world, skipping school and acting out swashbuckling adventures in the countryside with a model soldier as his first mate. Luke uses the figure as a coping mechanism; a substitute for his dad, and his imagination lets fly as the soldier turns real. An emotional hit of a film, and full of beautiful landscapes. 8/10

Mother, Mine - After grieving over the death of her adoptive mother, a woman attempts to trace her real parents. She manages to arrange a meeting, but it does not go to plan. A very good, tense film with a hellish twist at the end. 8/10

Joy - In a seaside fishing town, a miracle has happened. Someone has caught a singing fish! It's now singing for its life on the fishmongers' chopping board. Shot in sunny, windy Bridlington, the amusement factor lasts just long enough to fill out the film. 7/10

There's Only One Bob Latchford - For anyone who collected football stickers and stood in a playground chanting 'got, got, need, got, NEED!, got..', this is the film for you. It's set in 1978, following four children of the 'Brotherhood of Panini', relentlessly buying little packs of football stickers to fill their albums without resorting to the cheaters' option of sending off to Panini for them. One sticker is rarer and more prized than any other; that of Bob Latchford, and the kids will do anything to get it. Perhaps it would not so resonating to someone outside of the UK, but to any British man in his thirties, this is a great nostalgia trip, done very authentically (the football stickers, the packs, and the albums are all authentic looking, and the setting, clothing and haircuts are all completely convincing. A great, funny film. 8.5/10

Yakov, My Boy - Yakov is the Jewish grandson of a second world war survivor. On the day of his Bar Mitzvah, Yakov just wants to play football, and has no idea of the weight his grandfather has placed on the day. A quiet film demonstrating the importance people put in keeping certain memories alive. 7/10

In Pursuit Of.. Best of British Shorts 1

Stowaway - A documentary about the constant influx of Africans heading into Spain illegally, having to pay to sail to Europe, often having to swim part of the way, crossing deserts filled with bandits and predetors, and living in squalor in tents just a few kilometers from the high 2-level border fences. As well as footage of those who do manage to make it over, it also shows some disturbing imagery of those who are caught along the way. Even those who do make it through the obsticles then have to find work, which is practically impossible, even with qualifications and work skills. It certainly raises many questions, about what to do about the situation where people are prepared and able to work but cannot legally do so, but doesn't provide much in the way of answers. 7/10

Charon - The ferryman that crosses the river Styx in the Greek myth is given a rather scratty form here, as he travels to find his mortality after so many years. The stop-motion jerkyness and the look of the figure (a slithering lump of braided hair and clothing) mean you can rarely interpret any indication of what he is thinking or doing, and the end comes without warning, just as you're waiting for something to happen. 3/10

Let Me Show You Some Things - After some time apart a brother and sister, now well into their 20's, are brought together again when she needs accommodation. Childhood-influenced behaviours and bickerings begin to resurface as they talk about their memories of an innocent time, but the happy scene cannot last; he is introverted, sensible and straight; she is wayward, mischievous and unreserved, and they find life in his small, cramped flat quickly becomes strangling. A good, solid work about what happens after a time to grow apart, and how it can be healed. 6/10

Ralph - Ralph isn't the sharpest tool in the box. Proudly sporting his pikey attire and casual bling, he struts and struggles through the streets of France with a massive suitcase, looking for someone to help him dial his girlfriends' telephone number and getting angry when the people around him cannot understand what he is saying. As he gets more and more out of his depth, it is difficult not to feel some empathy towards the arrogant child, and when he finally makes a bit of headway thanks to a young waitress, that's just the wrong time for coincidence to strike. Solidly entertaining. 7/10

Dead Dog - A man and his girlfriend head to a farmhouse where he believes the farmer has shot his dog, having threatened to do so before when it trespassed on his grounds. When he arrives, he opens the boot of the car to reveal a shotgun. Will he be able to control his anger enough to avoid getting into more trouble? 6.5/10

Ryan - On a dodgy estate, Ryan struggles to find his spot in the pecking order of the local youths. Goaded on, he enters the house of an old man with the intention of nicking his stick, but things don't go well for him whilst inside. 7/10

Mind Game (Japan) (wiki)

A bit of a surprise inclusion, since it was originally released back in 2004. Nishi is a 20-year old who makes few ripples on the lives of others; when he sees that Myon, the girlfriend he has had a longing for since childhood has got herself a man - and not a bum, a decent, nice, hardworking guy - his reaction is 'he is the better man, I concede'. A chance encounter in a bar with a deranged football-mad freak ends up with Nishi dead in one of the least noble ways possible, and only then realising that his attitude on life is arse end up. Somehow earning a second chance, he takes immediate and insane control of the situation and speeds off, leading to a car chase that ends up in the belly of an enormous whale, where Nishi, Myon and her sister Yan have plenty of time to reflect.

Mind Game is just that, a story told with such intensity that it will continue spinning round in your head for some time after the last frame. That's not to sell the film short; the themes within are perfectly lucid and extractable, but they are bordered by a wall of technicolour eye hammerings that leave you breathless. It has a constantly morphing art style, using traditional cell animation for the most part, but departing from drawings of the main characters to using cut-out pictures of human beings in certain intense scenes. This is never explained, but I suspect it is to suggest that when the photographs are used, the characters are being at their most true, with no lies or misleadings between them. It's by Studio 4C who did the comparatively subdued Tekkonkinkreet shown at Leeds in 2007, and the art style for that film clearly has its origins here. If you want to see an example of how Anime can be the source of an enormous blast of air whizzing past you, then you should see Mind Game, perferrably twice; once to experience the visual intensity, and again sometime later to grab a flailing hold of its underlying themes. 8/10

Life, Death and Everything In-between - Best of British Shorts 3

I couldn't make all of this short film collection, but managed to see the first three offerings.

Battery - A sketchy, scrappy surreal animation where a man tries to dine with two bird-like beings at the same table. Periodically, the bird-things will melt, vomit or grin, the man will berate them, look at the clock, or get up and look out the window. Surrealism at its most pointless. 2/10

Wires and Bows - A short and simple but effective animation. A view from a moving car at wires slung between telegraph poles, to the accompanyment of a violin composition. The wires bow and bend and interact with each other in time with the music, and the telegraph poles correspond with pauses in the music. Well done, but thankfully it was only as long as the idea was interesting. 5/10

The Hunger House - In an alternate view of 1940's Britain, where the Nazi's have gained control of the country, an epileptic and a man with learning difficulties are rounded up to meet their fate in a correctional facility, echoing the treatment of the 'imperfect' Jews elsewhere in the world. Chilling to watch, and the imagination of what happens to these people is best not pursued. 7.5/10

Seaview (Ireland) (trailer)

At its peak, the Mosney Butlins holiday camp attracted 8000 people a year, providing cheap getaway breaks for a recovering postwar populous. It's transformation from holiday camp to holding centre for housing asylum seekers was completed in 2001, and as they wait for the Irish government to decide on whether to grant entry proper into the country, its inhabitants stifle and stew.

That is not to say the conditions are bad; it is considered by many immigrants to be one of the best places to go when in the limbo state, but whilst there, many feel it as a prison; they can go outside, but why bother? People arrive from all over; Russia, Nigeria, Africa, Croatia, Iran, Romania.. often with a desire and skillset to enable them to get straight into employment, but they cannot, and they are not able to enroll into the benefits system either.

The film interviews several asylum seekers held there at the time, plus some of the staff, a few of which worked there when it was a holiday camp and describe and lament the changes they saw, and the ones they had to do on themselves to accept a different kind of clientele.

It may have been the lack of sleep by this point, but I found myself unable to fully get into Seaview, which was an accomplished documentary revealing the voices of the asylum seekers, it could just do with being a little more varied in its content. 6.5/10

Sita Sings the Blues (US) (wiki)

Another animation project (similar to From Inside) where the animation, story and direction were done almost entirely by one person; Nina Paley. It tells two parallel stories, using several different art styles. The first, main story, is that of Sita, a character from a chapter of the Ramayana, an indian book of myths and legends. She is happily married to the lord Rama, but is stolen from his opulent grounds by the demon Rakshasa who fancies her more than a bit, and takes her to Sri Lanka. Sita remains loyal, but Rama doesn't believe her and demands a trial by fire to show her chastity, which she passes. However, when it is revealed she is also pregnant, he cannot trust her enough to believe that the children are his. This aspect to the main story is told in two parallel styles, one of static cartoon puppets, where the characters move across the screen with little or no animation, and another, more iconic style that resembles a flash animation; where Sita uses the music of Annette Hanshaw to describe her feelings of the situation.

The viewer is helped through the finer points of the story by a third style, using a trio of debating silhouette figures, reconstructing the story from their patchy memories and using traditional Hindu art representations of the characters in a scrapbook style slightly reminiscent of the Terry Gilliam Monty Python animations.

The other story thread is done in a fourth, completely different style, chopped into sections and inserted between chapters of the primary story, it is an autobiographical account of the artist's breakup with her partner, leading to the motivation for the film.

It all hangs together quite well, though it does suffer from a mechanical switching between one style and another; the silhouettes bicker about what part of the story comes next, then we see the static puppets do dialogue with each other, and then Sita reiterates the situation via one of her singing numbers. After a while of this, it started to grate that yet another singy bit was coming along, even though they were perfectly entertaining in their own right.

Unlike From Inside, Sita holds up far better as a piece of work from a single person. The quality and quantity of effort is definitely higher, and it has an appealing style all of its own, with bright, garish colours, smooth animation, and a soundtrack that bounces between authentic Indian source and banging techno tracks, sometimes merging at a point between. As a labour of love, it deserves to be seen at as many venues as possible, and no doubt the director will go on to do many great works in the future, but Sita lacks a little in the polish and varience departments to truly make it sturdy enough for general, less patient cinema audiences to go see. 7/10

Leeds Film Festival - Day 11

Documentary Shorts Competition

Don't Shoot (South Africa) - Riaan Cruywagen is a seasoned newsreader on South African public TV since the late 70's, and has so been around to comment on the many events that have happened in the last 30 years. This documentary gives voice to both him and his critics; those who saw the riots and violence outside their windows, or worse, and had it referred to on the TV as a 'colourful demonstration'. Cruywagen responds repeatedly and vehemontly by pointing out he is a newsreader, not his place to either judge or compile the news; just read it out in an authoritative and convincing manner. This short documentary reveals the man behind the wig (it must be...) and his unprovoked self-justification is unsettling. 7/10

Plane Days (UK) - A group of plane spotters, old and young, male and female, sit in and around their cars outside Heathow airport, collecting airplane tail numbers like an adult version of football stickers. Some have gone to real expense, high-powered binoculars, laptops with specialised radar software and a direct link into the heathrow flight data. The way they track the planes mercilessly across the skies, which are pictured largely as skulking reflections in house windows, they seem to be doing it to satisfy some male hunter instinct, the women surely there because their husbands dragged them into it. It was an affectionate, non-judgemental window on the lives and motivations of these people. 7.5/10

Bidcatcher (Netherlands) - A strange fly-on-the-wall documentary about a netherlands auction house specialising in second hand large earth moving diggers and trucks, the sort whose wheels are larger than a man. Other than being slightly interesting to see huge machinery lining up like cars to the highest bidder, it wasn't very attention-holding. 5/10

The Consolation of Children (UK) - An affectionate tribute to the life of Arthur Worsley, and 'Charlie' his ventriloquists dummy, from his son and mother. Ed sullivans claims that he was the best ever were a little hard to swallow, until you saw him in full 'gottle of geer' flow, which showed off his talents perfectly. Since his death, Charlie has been resurrected from the suitcase and is often seen around the house, Arthur and Charlie were so inseperable that the presence of the dummy allows the family to retain a piece of the man. 7.5/10

52 Procent [52 Percent] (Poland) - The clinical, cattle-like process of finding the most suitable ballerinas from this years crop of young girls is troublesome to watch. And it's not so much a case of 'pushy mum' either - the kids want to get there more than anything in the world, and this is exemplified with Alla, who's legs are a little shorter than the 'ideal' 52% ratio of legs to height. Alla is given a second chance if she can somehow get those extra few millimeters, and puts herself through intense pain and suffering stretching her legs in all sorts of directions. Another well-made silent comment on an interesting section of society. 7/10

Going to Sleep is Something Absolutely Certain in Life (Italy) - A train heads through the night, the camera pointing out of the window, catching the dimly highlighted scenes of devastation outside. Occasionally, a passenger narrates over the imagery, fading in and out of a conversation with someone else. This film is a personal account of the devastation brought on in his home town, which I suspect but am not sure, refers to New Orleans, since there are American symbols in amongst the detritus of collapsed buildings and felled trees. As a personal record of the event, it has special meaning, but an entire film squinting to see what you're looking at began to grate. 4.5/10

Blauw [Blue] (Netherlands) - Three people interact with water in different ways; an aged fisherman on the blustery, rocky shoreline, a professional diver, and a young child messing around in a swimming pool with his dad all get to share their views. The kid was definitely the most smile-inducing to watch. 6/10

The Existence (Poland) (review)

This one is definitely not for the squeamish. Jerzy Nowak, an elderly actor has in the remaining months of his life decided to donate his body to scientific research when he dies, much to the shock of his family and friends. This is more involved than it sounds - the will has to be correctly worded so as to be compliant with the legalities of the situation, and when donated to science, the body in question ceases to be considered a person, and instead is merely an object, a property of whoever gets it to experiment on. At the start of the film, we see the sort of conditions such an ex-person has to look forward to; a submerged tank in a medical university vault holds one such specimen, and it is raised, dumped on a stretcher, hosed down and then carted off to be poked and prodded by some new medical students.

Norwak is seen preparing for the final day; having music composed for his funeral, visiting his lawyer to get everything sorted out, buying a suit and renewing his wedding vows, and visiting the medical university where he may end up spending two years before whatever is left of him is buried. It is a very good view of a man who is putting on a brave face, but occasionally emotion breaks through and his bottom lip begins to quiver, and it's difficult not to become affected by it all. If you can stomach the gruesome imagery (mostly at the start and end) then this is a well-done film. 7.5/10

From Inside (US) (site)

Based on a graphic novel of the same name by John Bergin, From Inside is an animation about a pregnant woman riding a train to an unknown destination, across a post-apocalypse wasteland, plowing through the remains of people and communities after some catastrophe. As the train ploughs on, it stops to pick up water, kill cattle for meat, and whenever it rains, in case of flooding the tracks. One day the train picks up a man with an injured dog, who begins leaving gifts for the woman, and as the birthing date gets ever closer, she suffers resentment from the other passengers for her preferential treatment.

From Inside is animation, but only just. Many scenes are simply a still or partially animated picture, with others being completely rendered in 3D, especially the train (which travels on tracks that have strangely survived when everything else has been obliterated). This restricted form of animation is sort of okay, especially when you realise that most of the animation has been done by Bergin alone, and the sketch style of the woman, often in silhouette against the train windows, fits well as an echo to its graphic novel roots. However, it just didn't hold much attention; it seemed a labour of love by the director, particularly the many 3D scenes that panned around the train as it went along as if to say 'I really spent a long time rendering this damn train and I'm gonna make sure I get my moneys worth..'. It all ended rather strangely as well, which I won't bother explaining, suffice to say it drew 'pfft's from the audience rather than the intended reaction which I think should have been quiet awe at what we had seen. I hear the novel itself is a very good one, but you should read that and ignore the film, for the latter spoils the former. 5/10

Sword of the Stranger (Japan) (wiki)

At last, a bit of anime. Leeds has been usually pretty generous with anime films across the years, but it turned up a bit short this year, with no Sky Crawlers or Ponyo to be seen. Sword of the Stranger had to shoulder my expectations pretty much on its own this year, and it did a solid job of it. Kotaro and his dog Tobimaru are on the run, sheltering in a remote temple where a ronin, Nanashi has decided to have a kip. Nanashi is your typical tight-lipped guy who refuses to fight again due to secret past blah but he can handle a sword like a pro blah, and he finds himself accompanying the kid through trecherous areas to return him to sanctury, for there are people out looking for him.

Various Chinese factions want to get hold of Kotaro, and have to do it within a few days or else they will have to wait a year to perform their mysterious rituals, creating a game of cat and mouse with each side trying to get hold of the kid for themselves, leading to plenty of bloody fights.

There was virtually nothing about Sword of the Stranger that could be considered original. It has typical anime feel and a predictable story ending in a showdown between the two main fighters. Made by Studio Bones, they of Cowboy Bebop and Wolf's Rain, with plenty of artistic ancestry on show from both sources. With such a pedigree, it was never going to be awful. Fluid animation, well coreographed fight scenes, and a good, solid story (although who was on who's side got a bit confusing), and though it did nothing original, what it did do, it did well. 7.5/10

Leeds Film Festival - Day 10

Blood Trail (UK) (interview, and a rather nice poster)

Robert King is a freelance photographer responsible for some of the most memorable and iconic wartime pictures to be found in the national newspapers in the past decade or so. He has an unfathomable but infectious passion for going to the furthest reaches of the war-torn areas and showing the world what he finds. This documentary is the gathering together of 15 years of footage of King, from his earliest days in 1993 where he flung himself into the middle of the Bosnian war with only what he had seen on TV to help him dodge the bullets; through assorted other destinations where the papers wanted someone to go in and risk it all for pictures; Bosnia, Sarajevo, Chechnya, Iraq... Showing his failures and rejections, through getting his first break where he went into the Chechen rebellion just as everyone else was getting the hell out, to the present day where he has matured from rookie to respected photographer.

Blood Trail, as the title would suggest, is not easy to watch in places. It contains both images and video of some of the most sickening effects of war on those who neither asked for it, nor could do anything to stop it. It also profiles Robert King the man, who as he describes himself, was 'self destructive' as he was growing up. This state continued through his early career years, with excessive drink, drugs and prostitution in the middle of the war just to get the images out of his head. His dark, sometimes cruel sense of humour (such as an addiction to letting off firecrackers in a wartorn city) may offend but this is a man constantly thrusting himself into the worlds most dangerous situations, it is his form of coping. Becoming a family man with a wife and child has provided a steadying influence, but his thirst to continue heading into the fire is still strong. The film provides a contrast by mixing in present day family life, his wife and son, and a camping trip with fellow photographer Vaughan Smith shooting deer in the Tennesee forests.

It's interesting on both a historic and personal level, seeing the familiar world events unfolding as King matures and learns and becomes physically more aged. It's yet another powerful, sometimes jaw-dropping documentary film chronicling one man's passion and trying to explain, however futile that may be, why he does it. 8/10

International Fiction Competition 1 - Incommunicado Shorts

This short film collection was based around the theme of how technology has hindered contact between people rather than enhancing it.

El Tiempo Prestando [The Letting Time] (Spain) - An elderly and infirm man has moved from his flat into the house owned by his son and daughter-in-law after an injury. As their lives merge and conflict, his requests to move back to his flat are ignored and increasingly he is cut off from them, for they want the flat for themselves. 6.5/10

Mobilni Snovi [Mobile Dreams] (Bosnia/Croatia) - An elderly couple don't talk to each other any more. In a last ditch attempt to get a dialogue going, the man buys a couple of mobile phones. Unfortunately, failing memories orperhaps bloody mindednes usurps his plans. 6/10

Cherries (UK) - In a similar but slightly unfamiliar Britain, where a few more anti-terror laws have been passed, it seems, a bunch of unruly students are about to get a cold slap in the face. The war has been going badly and the government has decided to provide compulsory training for all men and boys in the country. As the kids realise their situation, will they stand up for their rights or fall in line? Chilling and interesting. 7.5/10

Alexandra (Romania) - Alexandra is the daughter of a separated mother and father, whose remaining relationship has broken down due to distrust. Tavi thinks his ex is encouraging their daughter to not think of him as dad, and Lulia feels she is shouldering most of the responsibility for her upbringing. Things erupt when Lulia sets up Saturdays as piano lesson day, the only day when Tavi is allowed to see her. The poor new husband, who seems to be the best of the three of them, can only look on helplessly. A good insight into a broken marriage, but it meandered a little. 6.5/10

Pop Art (UK) - Toby's father is in depression after the death of his mother. He gets little more than shouts from behind the locked door his father has put himself beyond. He meets a new friend at school - Art, a mute, inflatable child - who he begins to bond with. A nice little film, and it was especially impressive in some of the scenes where Art seemed to move without strings or computers. 7.5/10

Tyttojen Ilta [Girls' Night] (Finland) - A single mother and her teenage daughter decide this will be the night to get what they want. The mother heads out to the local bar to meet a web boyfriend, while the daughter ends up back at the house trying to get a party going. Both end up realising it's not quite as easy to get what you want. 7.5/10

Studeny Spoj [Cold Joint] (Slovakia) - A young girl grows up in an industrial area, spending her time exploring the cold, giant buildings full of dangerous, clunking machinery. She'd rather be there than at the house, where her babbling, drunk father and ambivolent mother provide no comfort. 6/10

Leeds Film Festival - Day 9

A lot of short films today, split into three areas, so I'll keep each one pretty brief.

Many of the films are profiled on the shortfilmcentral website. I've included some direct links for my favourite ones.

International Fiction Competition 2: Small Europe, Big Cinema

This segment was all about highlighting short films from the smallest or most overlooked corners of the European Union.

Akmeni [Stones] (Latvia) - Gets off to an odd start; a mysterious man carrying green plastic bags visits schools and houses looking for men and boys to 'volunteer' for a mysterious purpose. This was a bit too abstract and weird to hold together and then ended before telling us what the hell was going on. 3/10

Maykomasmalon (Slovakia) - A very short but highly charged film, going through the final thoughts and emotions as a Nazi soldier is condemned to death, seemingly because he chose the wrong sort of girl to fall in love with. 6/10

Halib Ix-Xitan [Hells Dispite] (Malta) - Annoying music and overly slow panning shots almost but not quite spoils this film; a couple bicker and argue in their comfortable lives until their ignorance of the things going on around them ends in tragedy. 4.5/10

Josh (Luxembourg) - Several days after his parents have been killed, Josh's house is a den of complete destruction, a hive for the local kids to go and get drunk all day in their otherwise quiet village. Maybe it was the point, but this film made my blood boil with the complete lack of restraint and desecration of his parents house. 5/10

Must Peeter [Black Peter] (Estonia) - A long suffering man with a (frankly batshit) wife are trying to see out a fortnight without having one of their arguments that so often becomes their only persona in front of friends. After a night of mental torture from her, he decides to take matters into his own hands once and for all. A good idea, but spoilt slightly by an abstract 'jazz club' style improv track. 6/10

Odigeos Chriseos [Instructions] (Cyprus/Greece) - An art student living alone buys herself a flat pack bed, but upon getting it home realises she just doesn't have the right sort of brain for the ordered instruction following it requires. Calling the helpline, a man calls who is the polar opposite of her; tidy, ordered and clinically efficient in his every action. After marvelling at his quick assembly skills she falls in love, but after repeated purchases of new furnature she seems unable to communicate with him using her normal means, until she realises how well he can follow instructions.. A magical little film, using no dialogue, just actions. Definitely the best of the bunch. 7.5/10

International Fiction Competition 3: Fireworks

These films all dealt with action going on within the workplace.

Daichi wo Tataku Onna [The woman who is beating the earth] (Japan) - A female butcher works with her colleagues, her main function is to blat the meat with a hammer to tenderise it. Her boyfriends beatings are taken out on the meat as she dreams of running away with her friends to form a pop group. Will she drum up the courage to leave her boyfriend, or at least give him a bit back? A nice film with a good twist at the end. Stay for the credits. 6.5/10

Tall Greens, Tight Yellows (UK) - Jules chose the gypsy life and works part time wherever she can get it, and at the moment that's picking daffodils (the source of the film title). Unfortunately, she has to drag Molly with her, who tires of being uprooted before she can make friends at the local school when the work dries up. A quiet slice of life film. 7/10

El Mourabbi (Netherlands) - A cocky pizza delivery boy encounters an abandoned baby at one of his delivery addresses, and suddenly changes his outlook on life. Making the mistake of getting too close too quickly, how will he be able to tear himself from the child once he accepts that he cannot give it a proper future? 7/10

Auf der Strecke [On The Line] (Germany/Switzerland) - A security guard has access to all the cameras in the department store where he works, and misuses them to monitor a woman who works in the book department. He even uses them to find out when she leaves so he can be innocently found on the same train as her. One day, he sees her board with a man, and his jealousy overwhelms him, walking away when the man gets into a fight with youths. When the man is reported dead on the news the following morning, he realises the betrayal of his emotions. On The Line is a very strong film, made well, and stirred up a lot of emotion as the situations unfolded. There's more here than in some full-length films. 8/10

Soleil Bas [Oblique Sun] (France) - Based on an account of a real-life event in 2004, two farm inspectors visit a farmland to perform a routine check on conditions, but the farmer wants none of it. Any more would spoil the surprise, and it was quite a shock. 6.5/10

Intre Ziduri [Between Walls] (Germany) - In Berlin, a group of Moldavian immigrants work illegally on some demolition work in a building, hiding whenever the police come round for an inspection. Their supervisor takes exception to one man's refusal to drink and promises him a wad of cash if he can down a full bottle of vodka. Events to alter the balance of power are about to occur, but in whose favour? A good little film, keeping me guessing which way it was going to go till the end. 7/10

International Animation Shorts Competition

Le Jour de Gloire [The Day of Glory] (France) - A very moving piece remembering those who have died in the world wars; clay and mud were used to model the soldiers on the battlefield as they went over the trenches and became one again with the soil as they fell. 7.5/10

Hungu (Canada) - Using a computer to generate 3D models, but with a very silhouette-like appearance, and overlaying subtle measures of sand to give effective shadow and shade effects, this piece tells of an African tribe who lose one of their number to illness, and having to tear her child away from the dying mother to keep going after the day's food which is getting away on hoof. 7/10

Kleit (Estonia) - A very strange one; a woman's dress tears and re-heals in an organic way, giving the impression of a biological entity that decomposes and returns in a more broken-down form. Very well done, so long as you just sit back and enjoy the work gone into it rather than attempting to extract any story. 5.5/10

La Dama en el Umbral [The Lady on the Threshold] (Spain) - Michael, a sailor arrives in his home town on shore leave and finds his old friends Gerard limbless and married to his childhood sweetheart. During a meal with similarly lopped friends who all served together on the good ship Delphine, Gerard is told of how they came to be as they are, and finds himself in a very dangerous situation. The quality of the animation was barely distinguishable from anything that Pixar has created, and was funny and unnearving to see to the end. 7.5/10

Ona Koja Mjeri [She Who Measures] (Croatia) - An abstract yet scathing satire on consumerism. A line of sheep-like consumers with shopping trolleys walk patiently behind a big fat floating clown, who is farting out products for them to hoard as they watch the monitors that have been screwed to their heads. Truly bizarre, but worth the effort just to see a clown firing products out of its arse. 7/10

The Pearce Sisters (UK) - Two fugly sisters live in a beach hut, catching fish and occasionally the odd washed-up sailor, who for some reason (if they aren't already dead) run screaming from the hut once regaining consciousness. This film was brilliantly done, the gruesome-looking sisters resembling a comic-book 2D look, but fully realised in 3D. The story is funny, unsettling, macabre and even a little touching. See it if you can. 8.5/10

Skhizein (France) - A really inventive story - a man is struck by a huge meteorite, and suffers no damage, except that he is 91cm away from where he should be at all times, leading to a lot of chalkmarks all round his little flat as he tries to cope with his other-dimensional affliction. Great film, unique concept and funny, appealing style. 8/10

Aquarium (Czech Republic) - A domestic situation is described in scruffy pencil lines as a child and its parents laze around at home, until the kid decides to peel back the wallpaper to see what is behind it. There's a world outside those walls.. 5.5/10

Seemannstreue [Sea Dog's Devotion] (Germany) - Based on a macabre poem by Joachim Ringelnatz about a man who finds his true love, but after burying her body when she dies in an accident, he cannot bear to be without her and digs her back up again. The film is very beautiful, using swirls of colour and photos of the human body to create the characters who move fluidly and with sparkle. 7/10

Monsieur Cok (France) - No giggling at the back - In a reality not looking that different to socialist Russia, an egg-shaped greedy executive runs a munitions factory. Not satisfied with output, he begins firing his workforce and replacing them with robots who do the job twice as quick, and also investing in a few robotic guards to police the place when the angry mob descends. One man however is determined to get through. A highly detailed art style, where every character is a gargoyle and the world is a forest of metal and fire. 7/10

That's the end of today's short films. There were a few duffers, but that's the good thing about the short film segments, if you happen to encounter a duffer, it won't last long and there may be a cracking one along to replace it.

Empties (Czech Republic) (wiki)

My only feature-length film today is the last in a trilogy by Jan Sverak. I think after this film, I'll have to take a look at the other two because it was a bit of a cracker. Josef is a disillusioned schoolteacher in his sixties who has a late mid-life crisis and leaves his job. To his wife's despair, he chooses first to be a cyclist courier, and then after going flying into a fence and breaking his ankle, a more sedate job at the empties counter in the local supermarket. His old boss is disappointed, as is his wife who cannot bring herself to visit him in his new place of work and is going through a bit of a crisis herself, convinced that he is having it away with all the ladies he naturally seems to attract. It's a cheeky poke at the idea that life has pretty much ended after sixty beyond bus passes and cabbage stew, and benefits from having a well-made script and some quality acting from the cast. 8/10

Leeds Film Festival - Day 8

Don't Get Me Wrong (Romania) (site)

This documentary was similar in style to the earlier Drifter, but where that film fell down in its monotonous static shots, Don't Get Me Wrong worked much better. Set in a Romanian psychiatric institution, and using no narration, the cameras quietly take in a small period in the lives of its inmates. Two in particular form the backbone of the experience, Alexander is a man who has become convinced that he is a supernatural being comparable to Christ, who is able to start and stop the rain at will; Ocsy has managed to find a smart suit from somewhere and walks around the institution debating with Alex about the notions of religion and the afterlife. (in fact, it was very difficult to tell whether he was an inmate or a visiting doctor..) The film's title comes from the phrase that prepended most of their discussions - 'don't get me wrong, but I disagree with your theories that you are God...'

Interspersed with these heated debates are more domestic scenes, of the other inmates wandering aimlessly around, some given certain responsibilities such as feeding and changing the nappies of those unable to do for themselves, while others spending their time occupying their minds as best they can, the most touching was a bloke who spent 40 years just moving a huge pile of stones a few feet to the left in the courtyard. Despite the sound of it, it was a touching tribute to forgotten lives and their day-to-day actions. 7/10

Cyanosis (Iran) (short film synopsis/trailer)

Running with Don't Get Me Wrong, this short documentary brought to the attention the work of an Iranian street artist, Jamshid Aminfar, who uses scraps of wood and car hubs as the canvas of his works; garish, demonic imagery representing his feelings and experiences, created using primary, saturated colours. These paintings come to life through a series of vivid animations that remain true to his style, and they seamlessly knit with the live-action sequences to great effect. Jamshid has his fair share of problems; his parents beat him, his friends and family shunned his decision to give up his previous menial jobs, his wife has nothing in common with him, and he regularly gets attacked by police and the artists struggling through the college at great expense who have to walk by him every day.

Cyanosis gives voice to the artist and the man just as his life is turning round; someone wants to set up an exhibition of his work, and a promising young French woman has taken an interest in him as well. It's a bittersweet tale of sticking to your guns, by the end of which I had changed from an initial revulsion to the art style to actually warm to it now it's muse had been explained to me. It left me wanting to see more of the guy's work, unfortunately there isn't much about online. 7/10

Out of Time (Austria)

Another documentary, this time about the slowly disappearing sight of high-street shops owned by families and individuals, rather than chain stores. It takes a handful of shopkeepers of varying types (a butcher, a leatherware store, a grocers and a button shop, all of which have been going for several decades and sometimes through many generations) and shows their situation under declining popularity in favour of chain stores, supermarkets and the internet.

What starts out as a fairly ordinary slice of life that seems to concentrate purely on their chocolate box appearance and appeal, begins to expand in size and warmth as the shopkeepers and their families begin to share with the audience their feelings of where they are in their lives; some are proud of their continued commitment, whilst others are left asking why exactly they decided to devote their lives to such a living instead of pursuing the dreams held in a younger life.

I was surprised at the amount of emotional investment I had placed in the film, which by the final chapters had moved from the shop to the people in it, and followed them at what for some is an end of a working life, one especially moving one has a shopkeeper returning to his emptied store which he had been a part of for the past seventy years, both joyful and bemused at what he would do in life now that his shop was no more. The strength of this film crept up on me and I was very glad I caught it. 7.5/10

Dream (S Korea)

Kim Ki-Duk is a favourite filmmaker of mine, especially after discovering some of his earlier films, such as 3-Iron and Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter... and Spring at previous festivals. His films often use serene landscapes, relying on actions more than words (in 3-Iron, the two leading characters never spoke once) and playing on a number of recurring themes; a spiritual element derived often from eastern folklore, a cyclical approach to the story, and love under difficult circumstances.

Dream fits right into classic Ki-Duk filmmaking. Jin dreams that he is chasing his ex-girlfriend in his car, and collides with another car, before speeding off. He wakes up, and because the dream is so vivid, he drives to the scene of the accident, where true enough, the victims car is being picked up by the police. Following them to the house of the owner, Ran. She is dragged screaming to the station claiming she has been asleep the whole time, when he attempts to explain the situation to the forces, they naturally want nothing of it.

Turns out that he and the woman are connected by a curse - whatever the man dreams, the woman will act out in real-life, sleepwalking her way through it. Going to a mystic, she says that falling in love is the only way out. As they try all sorts to get round the situation, they realise they are connected indirectly via their ex-partners - whom she hates and he loves; they are ying and yang, two opposites and in fact two halves of the same spirit.

Ki-duks films are rarely predictable, and though you may think that the ending is an inevitability, it isn't quite so simple as that. It's an inventive, moving, sometimes funny, sometimes brutal and often a beautiful film, and easily up there with his best works. 8/10

Dachimawa Lee (S Korea) (trailer)

Finally, an antidote to all the seriousness of the past films. Dachimawa Lee is a suave but slightly chubby detective, highly feared and respected in 1940's Korea. It plays as a slapstick fusion of Bond, Dick Tracy and Austin Powers, and sends up all sorts of martial arts and spy films, and is a big-budget remake of an experimental film he made ten years ago. The detective is sent after a Golden Buddha which has gone missing after being stolen back from a fellow agent who has suffered for her actions. Dachimawa and his appointed female assistant (along with a few Q-style gadgets) must head off in search of them, not least because the statue contains a list of all of Korea's secret agent details, which the Japanese would like to get hold of. Infultrating a Mongolian settlement, he escapes with the Buddha, but doesn't make it very far before crashing and losing his memory. His oft-beaten enemies suddenly have a shot at revenge..

Crazy fight scenes, intentionally ludicrous situations, lots of laughs and a breakneck pace to the action make for a hugely entertaining film, one that I could happily see again. 8/10

Leeds Film Festival - Day 7

Genova (UK) (review/wiki)

An effort from the domestic FilmFour brand, this film by Michael Winterbottom stars Colin Firth in a part almost made to exploit his navel-gazing talents. He plays Joe, the husband and father, the latter to two daughters, one is Mary, a spunky, springy ten year old, the other is Kelly; older and midway through her teens with all the all-knowing, self consciousness that brings to the part. On a car journey home in the middle of a frozen American state, spunky daughter causes them to crash, killing her mother. After the funeral, Joe decides that they should try to begin again, and move to Genoa to work with an old childhood friend teaching philosophy to Italian students. He shoulders the strain pretty silently, trying to support both daughters who begin to go off the rails trying to cope with the loss; Mary becomes convinced her mother is visiting her and often trails off into the narrow, foreboding back streets to try and stay with her. Kelly quickly fits in with the moped-riding cool kids and becomes increasingly detached from the family unit.

Genova is a solidly-made, entertaining film, the script is tight and believable, and there are moments of thrill and intrigue at what will happen next, but the film doesn't achieve greatness because after the preamble of moving to a new place, it becomes a series of near-but-not-quite disaster situations that lead to a predictable but not unwanted climax at the end. 7.5/10

Chomsky & Co (France) (site)

Noam Chomsky is a political activist both celebrated and criticized, whose credentials span back to the sixties. Now 80 years old, he still works as a journalist putting in a hundred hour week. The French radio jockeys who made this documentary see him as one of the eminent voices for a truly free and open society today. With nearly two hours to play with, this film interviews Chomsky as well as fellow thinkers from around the world on a host of subjects revolving around the notion of freedom and how free we are to do things as opposed to how free we think we are.
Chomsky describes the true extents of democracy, and how those in power can retain control of people's lives even in a democracy through the 'manufacture of consent' - changing peoples' opinions of things by using the correct words to describe them. His most straightforward example is GM crops and the experiments some of the big agriculture companies did by testing different descriptions of their GM produce with different wordings to see which ones gave the most favourable reactions. The film also touches on the use of media to play up or down certain world events, such as the massacres in Indonesia and East Timor, the latter being hardly touched by the press because the guns used in the killing were mostly sourced from the US.

There is much more to this film than what I could write here. Chomsky definitely knows his onions, but the film suffered a bit due to it being in a foreign language - some of the dialogue flew by, expecially when listening to some of Chomsky's foreign compatriots, who clearly had much to say and not a lot of time to say it. It was definitely worth seeing, but I would recommend one of Chomsky's books first, which I am going to chase up myself thanks to the contents of this film. 7.5/10

Parting Shot (Swiss/France) (site)

Featuring the gorgeous Isild le Besco in the starring role as Fred, a nurse suffering with clinical depression, who also happens to be an expert on a shooting range. After a particularly bad day, she goes off the rails and tries to shoot herself with her rifle, only to stop at the last moment when she sees two youths shooting at birds in a park. Overcome with the situation she takes aim and fires, injuring one of them badly in the leg.

By coincidence, he is admitted to the ward where she works, and being the brattish lout that he is, makes life difficult for the nurses, and shouts and swears at his mother whenever she comes near. Only his father gets any form of acceptance and its tearing the already strained family bonds apart.

By good fortune, the boys didn't see who shot them, so Fred is safe for the moment to take care of her new patient, who the other nurses have more than happily put in her charge of. Slowly a friendship builds between the two, and the violent outbursts bely a frightened child underneath, and this revealing goes some way to healing the family rifts. But the secret cannot be kept forever, and when it inevitably slips, what course of action is open to her?

This was another well-made, well scripted film which didn't drag and would stand up to a second viewing quite easily. You could see exactly where the film was headed within the first half-hour but the ride there is a good one. 8/10

Black Ice (Finland/Germany) (site)

A thrilling end to the night, this film is quite rightly riding high in the audience reviews, and tonight was the last chance to see it before it goes on general release, which in the UK, will probably be never. Saara is a middle-aged woman who discovers an open packet of condoms in her husbands belongings, which after some detective work on his computer, leads her to his mistress, the uncompromising Tuuli, who is a student at the art and design college where her wayward husband works. Initially intending to confront her at the evening Taekwondo classes Tuuli attends, she is mistaken for a new recruit and asked to join in, where an idea is planted in her mind to invent an other self, in order to get closer to this mysterious girl and find out exactly what is going on.

Black ice plays brilliantly as a thriller, Saara (now Crista) weaves an increasingly complicated life for herself as she works to ensure neither Leo (her husband) is aware of Tuuli's new 'friend' or that Tuuli knows just who it is she is accepting deeper and deeper into her own life, especially when she begins boasting about the affair she has had.

Though the obvious eventually happens, there are so many fresh and unpredictable twists and turns that it at no point becomes boring, the audience kept in the loop at all times despite the many layers of deceit between the principal characters, thanks to a great script that neither overcomplicates a good idea, nor dumbs it down to ensure that people can keep up. A really good film, and its a pity it won't see a full release outside its home territory. 8.5/10

Leeds Film Festival - Day 6

Blind Loves (Slovakia) (cached site)

I'm still not sure now, but I believe this was a straight played film with actors, but done in a very convincing documentary format. Regardless, it gave a peek into the lives of four people who have to live with their blindness. Peter is a middle-aged pianist who is preparing his Rainbow choir - a group of blind and partially-sighted children - to put on a performance at the local church. As a hobby, he uses his synthesiser at home to give lyrical accompaniments to the stories he imagines in his head, to the eternal patience of his wife, who is also blind. Mori is a tanned blind man who is deeply in love with a partially sighted white woman. Her parents are not pleased, and things get more complicated when, after going on a camping trip 'as friends' she ends up pregnant. Elena is already partway through her term, and will shortly be giving birth. She spends her time worrying about how the child may be taken away from her and her blind husband, crossed with wondering how her likes and dislikes will be different from her child, who has every chance of having perfect eyesight. Lastly, Zuzana is a young blind student who listens to the classics in her bedroom and loses herself in the music. She is about to go to university with her sighted friend, and makes friends with a promising male student through a chat room. Her excitedness turns to dread when he asks to meet in real life - will she be spurned when he realises she is blind?

Quietly funny, a gentle observation of life with blindness; I was initially sceptic of the description of the film, citing an 'art-house' feel, but I am glad to say it was much better than the perceptions such a description can conjure. The last part of the film was the best, re-visiting each of the people in turn, seeing how their problems turned out. 8/10

Summer Book (Turkey) (site)

Ali is just about to break up for summer holidays. On his last day at school, his teacher passes round a Summer Book - full of puzzles and stories to read and play to ensure the kids minds are kept at least a bit active during those months. Unfortunately, Ali is a bit scrawny and has the book taken off him outside school.

Veysel is Ali's older brother. Himself out of miliatary education for the summer, he returns home and drops the bombshell his father didn't want to hear - he wants to leave the military and go to a civilian university instead, which apart from breaking his fathers heart, will cost money in compensation to the government to pull off.

Mustapha is angry; he can see in his son the same abandonment of things halfway through that his brother Hasan has done in the past with his education and his love life, and now Hasan is stuck working in a butchers shop in town barely getting by. Mustapha does the main job in the home despite his advancing years - he gets up at the crack of dawn and with the help of some of the women from the villiage, sees to the lemon picking in his groves.

These strands of story meander along at life pace, until Mustapha collapses on the way back from the groves, his truck abandoned, apparently with money inside. Hasan takes on the responsibility of getting the truck back but when he finds it, there is no money present. Inconsistencies begin to build up and the long held suspicions of Mustaphas' wife that he might have a bit on the side surface, so Hasan plays detective to try and work it all out.

Summer Book was alright, but it had three main problems with it. First, it spent far too little time on from what the title suggested was the main plot; that of Ali trying to get through his summer holidays bookless and bullied. Second, the story continued at not quite snails pace, but still very slowly. Third, it left the viewer with a good wodge of plot threads that led nowhere, such as the summer book disappearing from the plot and was never thought about again, and Hasan's investigations uncovering nothing of particular note about the events leading up to Mustaphas' collapse. I'm not saying Summer Book was particularly bad; some sections were done very nicely, especially the mirroring scenes near the end; it was just meanderingly average, it evoked no emotion either way, and in the end, a good film must do that in order to be good. 5.5/10

Colours of Memory (AKA Mina the Woman of Ban) (Iran/Germany/Canada) (review)

A young boy grows up in Bam, Iran. He lives with his housewife mother and military officer father in a well-off house, and makes friends with the local children. At fifteen, he is sent off to Germany to study as a surgeon, narrowly missing the earthquake that levelled his home town, killing his parents and some of his friends.

Not able to bring himself to return, Dr. Bahman Parsa loses himself in his work for the next few decades, continuing down the unerring and unemotional path until the breakup of his marriage makes the ground fall from under him. He decides, not quite understanding why, to take the opportunity to return to his native country and deal with a longstanding issue of inheritance of a palm grove. Whilst there, he meets one of his old friends, a taxi driver who has a nice line in illicit alcohol, and a friend of his father's, who has a closer bind with the doctor than he is letting on. During his visit which moves slowly from a clinical get-in get-out of the place that has changed so much from the Iran of old and obviously holds many difficult emotions, to finally visiting his now derilict family home and finally putting some ghosts to rest, we see him come out of his emotionless shell a little and heal some personal wounds.

The film did suffer from some meanderings and unresolved threads, though nowhere near as badly as Summer Book, and the ending was surprisingly emotional, though I would have preferred to see more focus on the backbone of the storyline, which needed a little bit more support to be truly entertaining. 6.5/10

Fire Under the Snow (US) (site)

Lastly, a documentary about Palden Gyatso, the Buddhist monk whose hunger strikes earlier this year nearly disrupted the Chinese Olympics. If you looked on with interest at the treatment of the monks earlier in the year by the Chinese for doing their peaceful demonstrations in Tibet, this film is the one to watch. It recalls how, during a peaceful demonstration about the Chinese occupation of Tibet in the 1950's he was among a group that were arrested and sent to jail for 7 years. During that time he witnessed the destruction of his beliefs and the physical symbols that represented them in his home country, and the brutal torture and punishment meted out to them in the name of 're-education'. A few years into his term, by which time many of his comrades had been killed, he plotted his escape and nearly made the journey into nearby India, which still deals with a constant influx of Tibetan refugees to this day. Back in prison, they slapped more and more years of detention onto his term, often simply because he would not confess his sins and accept Tibet as part of China.

In 1992 after serving 33 years he was released, thanks to repeated pressure on the Chinese government from amnesty groups. He now lives exiled in India where he receives requests from all over the world to be the voice of Free Tibet. He regularly accepts and can be seen in the film on the Boston-New York march, and on hunger strike during the build-up to the Olympics.

This film was quite intense; I had not understood the level of the situation between China and Tibet until watching this film which makes a good primer to the subject (though there were hints of it in Daughters of Wisdom) and the dignity and calm of this elderly man is matched in scale only by the horrors that he went through, many of which are described vividly in the film. It's a documentary of the best kind, making a very important point and highlighting a great injustice of the world that continues today. I would recommend it to anyone as a companion piece to The End of Poverty. 8/10

Leeds Film Festival - Day 5

Behave (Bra) (review)

Brazil's juvenile correction system is a well-oiled machine, and it has to be. If the constant and unending stream of teens shown in the film entering the correction system at one end fresh-faced and impudent, and exiting out the other end, bald, bitter and often hopeless, then a large proportion of the teens in Brazil, especially those from the poorer districts, have helped keep the gears turning at some point through their lives.

The unnamed female judge featured in this documentary is fierce, with a piercing stare and sharp tongue. Once put in front of her, each offender goes from hard-nosed street thug, thief, mugger or murderer into a doe-eyed puppy. It's fascinating viewing to see her uncompromising and occasionally benevolent assessment of the crime and its individual circumstances, and some of the verdicts she arrives at may raise a few eyebrows.

When not in front of the judge, the cameras follow a half dozen new inmates into the prison to see the less than sanitary conditions, the food, and the strict discipline placed upon them by the pushy guards. It's all a bit depressing, which is amplified by the staggered format of the film, so we see existing inmates going through a typical day in one scene, followed by new entrants being convicted in the next. This repetitiveness could have become annoying, but worked well here to symbolise the conveyor belt of juveniles passing through the system.

The film was fascinating, eye-opening, shocking, funny and even heartwarming in places, showing the humanism even in the lowest moments of these young peoples' lives. 7.5/10

57000km Between Us (Fra) (director interview)

Some of the messages in this film were not completely lost on me; a disjointed family is described in detail. A wife and her live-in lover use hand held digital cameras and webcams to capture every part of their lives, which get placed on their blogs for hundreds of people to watch, big brother style. The estranged husband is a post-op transsexual and lives with his boyfriend in a big round block of flats. Nat, the sullen 'early teens' daughter, to the unthinkable ambivalence of the parents, runs a website where she attracts male clients who can live out their desires to be her baby. She is also playing an online RPG, which is the only contact she has with her boyfriend, someone she hasn't seen and thus isn't aware that he is slowly dying in hospital. The mother of the boyfriend is also in contact via a computer, but her webcam is turned off because she cannot bear to look at him or visit him. The distance between Nat and her boyfriend is the source of the films' title.

So, plenty of one-dimensional alludes to the pervasive technology in all our lives, taken to a level of absurdity so that it can be considered a satire. The director, Delphine Kreuter uses handheld cameras throughout to give the audience a chance to invade the personal spaces of the actors by zooming in clumsily to their faces whenever one of them begins to speak, unfortunately the repeated whipping and zooming was a source of seasickness and became very annoying.

The film could have been so much more than it was; lots of amateur camerawork, deliberate or otherwise is always a problem for the eyes, and there was too many random moments where something completely disjoint happened, such as a cut to an unrelated scene, or a transsexual suddenly jumping in a pond, or something else equally bizarre to break your mind's tracking of any flow of the story. There was also a bit too much of the philosophising which if you were to believe with such films, the French do on a daily basis with even the most mundane topics of conversation.

There are very good French films out there; Jeunets' Amelie and Chomets' Triplettes de Belleville are prime examples of beautiful films dripping with 'French'-ness that are also joyous to watch. This is very much not one of them, it is the pretentious, meandering sort of French film that fuels the stereotypical view of French cinema as 'arty farty', 'experimental' and not worth bothering with. If the director is reading this, myself and Ms Plants would like our hour and a half back, please. 2/10

Versailles (Fra) (director interview)

Thankfully, Versailles showed that France is still coming up with watchable output. Nadine is a single mother out on the streets of France, arriving in Versailles to look for work. Upon seeing an advert in a discarded paper, she decides that it could be a new start for her, but she has the problem of no home, no money, and a four-year-old child named Enzo to take care of. They come across Damien, a fellow vagrant living in a forest by the Seine, played by the late Guillaume Depardieu (son of Gerard). After an impromptu night of passion in front of the campfire, Nadine leaves, but does not take Enzo, leaving Damien to pick up the pieces.

Rather than taking the expected route of having Damien and Enzo embark on an epic journey to find her, Damien takes over as a father figure and raises the child as his own, eventually returning to his fathers' home and getting a job to pay the rent, something he became a homeless bum to get away from. His assumption is that Nadine will eventually return.

Where Nadine is in all this is left as an unexplained hole which the viewer is free to fill in with their own explanations, and her eventual reuniting with her son forms the eventual conclusion of the film. The storyline jumps along quite energetically with both humourous, sad and empathetic scenes to play with your emotions. There will be those who find that, after the credits begin to roll there are a few too many unexplained and unprobed aspects to the story, but as a whole, tells it well and is recommended. Interestingly, the thing that caused the death of Guillaume (complications arising from pneumonia) are actually suffered at one point by the character as they struggle to survive through the cold of winter. 6.5/10

Tea Fight (Jpn/Taiwan) (site /review)

Lastly, a film with its tongue firmly in cheek. There are many things that divide the various countries in the far east, but one thing they all have in common is a great reverence for the production, preparation and eventual consumption of their teas. Tea ceremonies are a regular occurrence, where secret recipes passed through generations of families are prepared with grace and style - and often lots of time - so that the end result may be savoured in a fashion totally different from a typical English cuppa. This film plays on these themes, inventing a Golden Tea, supposedly the best tasting ever, that had male and female versions. In the animated segment at the beginning of the film, done by Studio 4C, they of The Animatrix and Tekkonkinkreet, we see that the male tea causes men to become violent, whereas the female tea causes them to become calm and relaxed. When a hot-headed proponent of the male brew lays down the smack on one of the female sellers, a 'tea fight' is started, where the two sides create the tea they think is best. When the judge finds both teas lacking a certain something, the male tea guy throws a wobbly and has every trace of the female tea destroyed, or so he thinks.

In the present day, the film works its wiles to re-stage the fight, hundreds of generations later, the catalyst being Mikiko's discovery of her female tea lineage and the innocent looking tea bush in the back garden holding more secrets than she could have imagined. If only she can knock her father out of his depression about his late wife, she might just get to the bottom of the problem.
Totally lacking in the pretentiousness highlighted in some of the films seen so far, this came as a bit of fresh air in comparison. Never taking itself too seriously (the notion of a tea fight was invented for the film), there are silly segments and pseudo-serious ones, with typical goofy-teens providing light humour in the ways you often see in Japanese films of this type.

I really enjoyed Tea Fight, it was refreshing like a cuppa should be, and only required a willingness to accept the ridiculous notions of the faux reverence put into the tea making process, and just go with the flow of things. At the end of the day, as the film itself reminds us; it's just tea. 6.5/10

Leeds Film Festival - Day 4

Daughters of Wisdom (US/Tibet) (review)

During and after the Chinese invasion of Tibet, Buddhism was outlawed and many of its temples were destroyed or put off limits. In the years that followed the reinstatement of the faith as a recognised, legal form of religious worship from the 1980's onwards, the culture has reclaimed most of the lost ground. One of the effects of this new start is a difference in thinking about the notion of female Buddhist nuns, a rarely seen minority.

Traditionally such a level of religious following was only open to the men, who withdrew from an early age from any form of material life to live as a monk in solitude in the hope of doing their bit during that lifetime to ensure the path of enlightenment somewhere down the ages. This documentary film has rare privilege to briefly enter into the Kala Rongo temple and the lives of a group of female nuns who live there, high up in the Tibetan mountains, and follow as rigorous regime as their male counterparts elsewhere.

Occasionally visited by the regional Lama who bestows advice and a little money for the nuns, three generations of which have been responsible for actually creating the buildings themselves from scratch. We see them working with the main resource of the area - Yaks - which provides milk, cheese, meat and butter which they can use to sell to purchase the items they require.

This quiet, reflective film shows both the virtues and the great sacrifices that a material-free existence demands, encouraging the viewer to ask questions about their own lives and happiness. Not only that, but it's one of the few places to see the nuns on motorbikes, crossing chasms with a rope slide like they were on the Krypton Factor, and acting as builders for their next project, a replacement Retreat where the core teachings can be taught in complete isolation - three years living in the building with no outside contact! 7/10

Gugara (Pol) (trailer)

In Siberia, a way of life is about to die out. The Evenky were a community of people who would make a living completely around their Reindeer herds, which thanks to the rising numbers of their natural predator, the wolf, have been slaughtered mercilessly. The last family of herders to exist had just lost most of their livestock to yet another attack. They find themselves with little choice; follow with the rest of their community away from their forest dwellings and into the nearby Russian towns, and attempt to integrate.

This film shows the events just as the last candle is about to be snuffed out, showing the already assimilated and often absent son, and his elderly parents look on as their culture is sidelined and boxed into well-meaning but farcical 'Indiginous peoples days' and a tourists' curiosity that their Russian neighbours have little or no interest in. 6/10

Drifter (Bra) (trailer)

Director Cao Guimares goes out on the roads of Brazil's beautiful rural landscapes and on his travels encounters three vagrants; a barely coherant babbler who has been on the roads 25 years and in that time has formed his own variant on Christianity, a frail old man who pours water everywhere and talks to the invisible guy stood next to him, and a man who spends his life pushing a trailer full of his worldly posessions along the long, hot highways, seemingly not heading anywhere in particular.

Guimares' experience is grounded in photography not film, and this shows. Though many of the scenes are beautiful, his use of single, unmoving shots verges on the ludicrous, his worst crime being a protracted roadside view in the middle of the night which lasted for a good five minutes or more, the only visible items being two small street lights at either side of the screen occasionally joined by those of a passing car. It may have been meant as an insight into the loneliness of a night alone on the roads, but it just looked like a lazy filler. There were several other scenes in the same vein throughout, and a steady trickle of cinemagoers quite understandably left partway through.

The only redeeming part of this film was the capture of some moments where the drifters - the babbler in particular - get to aire their views as the camera sits there taking it in. Unfortunately, that takes up about 20 minutes of the film, the rest was static arty shots which could have been jettisoned and the whole thing made into a half-hour TV documentary. 3/10

She Unfolds by Day (US) (interview)

Before this film began the presenter gave a short synopsis of the film, provided by the director to read out at his request. When a film requires such a preamble, its a warning sign for sure that they didn't manage to convey what they wanted to using celluloid alone. The film was actually submitted to Leeds for consideration some years ago - and rejected, and this one, which has been through two editing sessions was finally accepted into the festival and shown.

A middle-aged son becomes increasingly frustrated with his aging mother, who in the first stages of Alzheimer's desease, is forgetful, crabby and constantly wandering out of her supervised flat and out into the world, usually ending up in the middle of a wood, studying the wildlife around her. This basic story repeats and barely moves on at all, and is interspersed with other elements; the nurse who looks after his mother and several times tramps the streets looking for her, Jaques, his hyperactive dog (who is easily the star of the show), who appears in a set of home-movie style segments, and a succession of overly edited lumps of film that are repeating scenes of sun through leaves, grasshopper on lawn, general wildlife through poorly focused and drunkenly-held handicam. These scenes are again protracted and truly awful, some scenes repeat several times throughout the movie, others have been clearly edited so they are running in reverse, and they just made me want the movie to end. The only structured section to the films was the repeating cycle of the mother and son exchanging terse remarks about the situation, her wandering off, and him going out in his car looking for her.

The ending came almost as a relief; the nurse suddenly wanted to go out with the son, despite his medical condition that made him 'produce excessive mucus', and after the latest round of her wandering off he decides to just let her walk under a truck as he gets his end away, neither him nor the nurse seeming to care at all about what happens to her.

The original plot of the film was fictional, but became autobiographical when the actress who played the mother (in real life the mother of the director) degenerated quickly with Alzheimer's shortly after filming. This was one of the major catalysts for re-editing, but it resulted in a tatty, over worn film with frayed edges.

It was really, really bad. In the way that you can come out of a film feeling not so much apathy as malice towards the film for taking away hours of your life that you cannot replace. The only watchable segments are of the dog, and due to the repetitive editing, that quickly becomes tiresome too. Do not see this film if you have anything better to do at all. 2/10, and i'm being generous.

One Minute to Nine (US) (site)

A remote American township is home to Wendy Maldonaldo and her four children. The reason she is about to be sent to prison is not fully disclosed at the beginning of the film, but is slowly and shockingly revealed in it's first half. First we are told that she murdered her husband, and then after seeing old home video footage of the doting father as he cooes over his then-pregnant girlfriend, we learn that he is a deeply violent man with psychotic tendancies. In the week before her ten-year jail sentence begins, we learn about the family of four children, her mother and friends and neighbours, some of which were threatened by her husband as well, and the abusive, sadistic torture meted out onto them on a daily basis. The first revalations of the late father turn the stomach, especially as they sneak up on the viewer like they do.

Powerful and shocking throughout, it highlights the ineptness of the police who were repeatedly called to the property and of the clinical sentencing that ensured that the family would not be whole again for another decade and that justice may never be done. 7.5/10