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Film Reviews: London Film Festival

Olly Mann previews four new films playing at the 55th BFI London Film Festival.

By Olly Mann

17 Oct 2011, 11:30

I hate to use ‘female director’ as a pejorative term – Lord knows there aren’t enough ladies behind the lens. But I found Alison Bagnall’s movie The Dish and the Spoon (showing 18th, 19th and 20th Oct) frustratingly feminine; a patchwork of sensual moments in which an unconvincingly placid prettty-boy with hair like Edward Scissorhands (Olly Alexander) assists an alcoholic young woman (Greta Gerwig) on the road to recovery by moping around Delaware with her doing quirky things instead of knobbing her. One minute they’re dressed in period costume at a country dance, the next they’re swinging upside down on some park swings looking angsty, then they’re drawing faces in the sand. Are they a modern-day Vladimir and Estragon? Or just an arthouse Bella and Edward? I found it hard to care. The cinematography is evocative, and their relationship is sweet enough, but I would have got as much out of this if it were eighty minutes shorter and had a little more punch.
 
What would happen if a new Pope had a panic attack, just after he were elected?  That’s the question hilariously explored in Nani Moretti’s sumptuous We Have A Pope (showing 25th and 27th Oct), which you could describe as The Madness of King George meets Analyze This. Michel Piccoli gives a stunning performance as the confused cardinal, unprepared for the divine responsibility thrust upon him by his contemporaries. There are moments of pathos as he struggles to reconcile his mental instability with his faith, but there’s a lovely lightness of touch, too, not least in the scenes featuring Moretti as a Fredudian psychologist dispatched to cure the Pope of his anxiety (despite being warned by the cardinals that “the concepts of soul and subconscious cannot possibly co-exist”). The Vatican is not ridiculed outright, but presented as an inherently absurd environment, and the culture clash of 21st century psychoanalysis and this ancient institution makes for a charming concoction.
 
Norweigan drama Oslo, August 31 (showing 19th and 20th Oct) also revolves around its central character’s mental frailty and disconnection from the world, but there’s certainly no laughs here. Anders Danielsen is excellent as Anders, a melancholic 34 year-old drug addict losing the battle to put his life back together despite his ostensibly comfortable surroundings - wealthy parents, supportive friends and an opportunity for a job in publishing. Joachim Trier’s direction is compassionate and real – and it’s refreshing to see a middle-class drug addict, rather than a victim of poverty, depicted on screen - but from the opening section (Anders with stones in his pockets, attempting suicide) this film can feel like a trudge.
 
Playing in the opening days of the festival was Hard Labour, a real curio from Brazil. I spent the first hour wondering why this debut from Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra had been selected for the festival at all: for most of its running time it’s a straightforward and unremarkable recession-era melodrama, portraying the strain of making a wage. A husband loses his job, just as his wife plans to open a supermarket; one of their shop assistants appears to be stealing loaves of bread; their live-in nanny is working for less than the minimum wage. It feels almost like a political propaganda film about the struggle of the working man. But then come a few Cronenbergian flourishes – close-up shots of sewage, maggots, nosebleeds, taxidermy – hinting at a sinister world beneath the surface, and things go pleasingly weird.
 
For more details of the films playing at the BFI London Film Festival, visit http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff/

Oslo, August 31 will be released in selected cinemas on 4th November.

We Have A Pope will be released in December.