Was sagst du, Mensch ?

This is a Festival review of People on Sunday (Menschen am Sonntag*) (1930)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014 (28 August to 7 September)
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2 October

This review is of a screening of People on Sunday (Menschen am Sonntag*) (1930), which was a special event at Cambridge Film Festival 2014 (#CamFF) on Friday 5 September at 4.00 p.m.

The naturalness of director Robert Siodmak’s People on Sunday (Menschen am Sonntag) (1930) beguiles us, and persuades us that what we are seeing might be true – an effect that is part of the immediacy of Neil Brand’s (@NeilKBrand’s) and Jeff Davenport’s live accompaniment.

Even for those of us who could construe the German in the slide at the beginning, and learn that what we were about to see was around 90% complete (some 1,800 metres of a known length of around 2,000 metres), nothing seemed to be missing, and the restoration was so clear that it did not leave us distinguishing different parts of the footage.

After the event, what one is left with is the impression of the morals and activities of the weekend in Berlin, spent by the lake at Schildhorn, and one has to pinch oneself and say that this presentation of life (outside of the candid shots of contemporary Berlin) is no more truthful than a newsreel of the day : that is the power of cinema, and of exposures that were not only clear, but insightful and affecting, that they can speak to us to-day when care has been used to present them alongside themes that match their moods, but had a feeling if not always of energy as such, then of being alive.

That, too, is something that we would come to associate with screenwriter Billy Wilder, whether in Some Like it Hot (1959), or Sunset Boulevard (1950), and is as good a reason as any to be interested in this film…


Over at TAKE ONE, Mike Levy has more observations about the film / performance...




End-notes

* Might we still write Menschen am Sonntag, or would it more often be Leuten - without the full sense that these are real, human people ?


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Six short films from Watersprite 2014

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19 May

This is a review of a screening at the bar of The Arts Picturehouse of the top films from Watersprite (the international festival for student film-makers, @WaterspriteCam) – it fell in two parts, the first being on Monday 12 May 2014


1. Wind [link to the film on Vimeo]

Much has been written about this inventive film already by TAKE ONE, which covered the Watersprite Festival. As with the one that followed at this screening, it plays with being the wrong side of safe, and some have said that it is about adapting to extreme conditions.

Yet, although one can have a stylized haircut that depends on the wind blowing, one gets one’s nose cut off, it is not. The adaptation itself seems to be to something that is of these people’s own making, for we see shifts being changed at the plant where the wind is being generated, and where the outgoing worker has had time to grow a lengthy beard before being relieved : a symbolic depiction, but we need reminding that we sometimes create a problem, sometimes psychologically, and then learn to live with it, rather than seeking a proper solution.



2. Border Patrol [link to the film’s IMDb page]

This is a story that does not quite take one where it might, when it has the potential of the older officer Franz having ‘got one over’ on his dismissive younger colleague Carl, but instead settling on a relatively modest and benign punch-line (if at the cost of an unfortunate victim).

It is well resourced and acted, and there is tension, but director Peter Baumann seems to have reckoned that the latter is dissipated by the film ending as it does, whereas it really ends as a sick comment on people in authority passing the buck (and at the expense of the person who suffered).



3. Echo [link to a ‘teaser trailer’ on Vimeo]

There was disagreement, following the screening, whether Caroline ends, through having cried wolf, in a different place from where she began. Even if she did, it is not obvious enough that she is not just ‘up to her old tricks’, and they are really what is more interesting, for she reminds of Jeune et Jolie (2013)’s Isabelle (Marine Vacth) in acting / seeming to act immorally.

At first, Caroline appears to be the one in danger, because she has strewn the contents of her bag on the floor and we fear that she may come to regret being so trusting. As things develop, and, when she is at home, it is clear that her mother had no message from her, it seems like a scam on her part, but maybe one to which she is addicted as Isabelle is. It turns out to be rooted in truth, whatever weight the ending bears : is Caroline, as Lady Macbeth does, repeating the distressing experience over again, because she can do nothing else, and not for gain ?



* * * * *



4. How to Count Sheep [link to the trailer on Vimeo]

After the interval came what felt the least effective film – not for the visual quality, or for the imagery of such moments (which spoke volumes) of tracks going towards and right up to a tree (a disappearance seemed implied, rather than a tree-climbing sheep), but for the lack of overall coherence.

Maybe it came from being in the invidious position of the first after the break, when concentration was not at its greatest, but it never seemed to come together to say something : was it life striving to imitate dreams, or dreams that were too rooted in the over-worked idiom of the folklore of going to sleep – or did we, despite its title, mistake, if we though that it had either aim in mind ? The title may simply have been an over-reaching claim, for it seemed like exploring being awake, but with a forced notion of what dream and its elements are…



5. Born Positive [link to the trailer on Vimeo]

Forget who mimes best to the real voices*, who have been disguised by having actors stand in for them : this is a powerful piece of film-making, well edited and treating of the three stand-in actors together and individually. It is a way of engaging with people who want to speak, but remain hidden, that proves very impressive here, not just because of the subject-matter.

At first, the three actors are on a roof-top space together (as can be seen in the trailer, talking in turns (and a place to which we return)), and we become used to them as a group with the unfamiliarity that this face is not really speaking these words – though all that links those speaking is having found out that HIV had been passed on to them (and the film ends with remarkable figures about how low the incidence now is amongst babies born to mothers in the UK with HIV).

One suspects that no more than with exact age that the ethnic origin may not have been kept the same as that of the speaker, to add a greater level of making the voices difficult to recognize, for Zachariah Fletcher (as Mark) did not sound as he looked, and Trevon Paddy (as Blake) seems older as an actor than the role that he was playing. The important thing about the film is, of course, what it tells us, but that it has Zachariah owning an outdoor location gives a vividness to what his character is telling us.

Blaming others for what happened, then finding, with reflection, that maybe they had guessed at what they did not know when a parent had not been around to ask, and working out how to tell others that they have HIV, and who needs to know – these strong questions that people ask about themselves and their identity in all sorts of contexts have a special poignancy in the context of statistics given at the end.



6. A Man Came From The Sea [link to the film at The University of York]

This was another film that seemed less strong : it is preceded by the incongruity of a tango reconstructed in arrangement (score by Kattguldet), a cynical evaluation by the well-played pair who find The Man unconscious, and a beautiful location, but – unless it meant to draw attention to itself – also a title-song in no way as convincing as those are in The Wicker Man (1973).

Here, because there was not the uncertainty inherent in How To Count Sheep, it was evident that the plot was wafer thin, dwelling on the theme of the refugee, and what makes, or does not make, someone worth while in the eyes of those who do not know him or her : not a skit on Yorkshire hospitality, but on all forces that will have someone ‘sent back’ because his or her ‘story’ has been discredited (albeit in an impressive long shot, and to what is now the stridency of tango-writing).

Unfortunately, the political staginess of a man made welcome and as soon rejected, was matched by the inevitability of what happened. With opening and closing sequences so long (1:23 and 1:34, respectively, out of an overall 10:28), and so no time for conflict where we might feel something more for this man with Scandinavian tones, we might just condemn the instance, but can overlook it as happening there – as if it could never happen / does not happen here.


End-notes

* After all, there must have been some matching of lip-movements to the target audio in the editing process. (One may also fear for the speakers that, from his or her voice alone, someone might know who he or she is, and so know things about him or her that were only being shared anonymously – one hopes not…)


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

George MacKay Q&A

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19 October


When George MacKay answered questions at @CamPicturehouse yesterday afternoon, it was after a screening of one of his latest, For Those in Peril (2013) - guarding against the peril of forgetting, here is a posting to record the main points...



* Non-spoilery answers *


NB Here is a link to the review


MacKay worked on three films last summer, which, in order, were How I Live Now, For Those in Peril and Sunshine on Leith.

He said that, as he had most involvement with the director in this film, he had found it a more involving experience, whereas he might have relied more on the cast on other projects.

I asked about the voice that he had used for the voiceover, and how it had been arrived at - it sounded like a complex process, not just of director Paul Wright making it sound more breathy in post-production, but of MacKay working with Wright in a studio, trying being himself, being his character Aaron, etc.

I also asked whether MacKay thought that, given that Aaron sees through Michael Smiley's character (Jane's father), he would have taken in what the people in the town were saying about him, or was too absorbed in trying to get his brother Michael back to pay attention - MacKay thought that it would have affected him, but that he knows what he thinks

Host Jack Toye, Marketing Manager at @CamPicturehouse, asked where MacKay saw himself going in twenty years' time - Toye asked if he would be a Hugh Grant by then, but MacKay said that it was not for him to comment

It was also commented that, despite appearing in this film and Leith with an accent, Mackay is not Scottish - I am not so sure that those who do not sound Scottish do not call themselves Scottish, but am assured that MacKay is from London.

Regarding those fellow citizens' derogatory comments, we were told that they had a script for them, but improvised with Wright, who then processed the results in post-production

As to the arduous nature of the part / story, MacKay said that the support from Wright had made it not difficult, but an enjoyable experience

He had not researched mental health much, and his work with Wright had always been to see where the roots to what was happening to his character lay in events, rather than approaching the film as if it were about mental ill-health as such - the status of the doctor whom he sees was left deliberately imprecise regarding being a psychiatrist


At the end, the irrepressible Rosy Hunt from TAKE ONE presented MacKay with two gingerbread figures, the traditional gesture of welcome in these parts


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

The what station ?!

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21 November

How I loathe, detest, and don't even like this relatively recent import from US English : 'an old warehouse opposite the train station'.

Listen carefully to Woody Allen films from the 1970s, and characters talk about 'the train station'. However, then it was not British English (and I'll fight for it never to be), but the station was just 'the station' :

Any other station, such as the bus station, police station, or fire station, needed qualifying, but we had (anyway) the word 'railway', if there were any doubt...

Or does anyone think that we should go further, and start using 'railroad', and other such terms from the States ?


As gratuitously added to www.takeonecff.com (TAKE ONE's web-site) - more of the same at What do we need 'for free' for?


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Somehow I blinked... (2)

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3 March

I quote, rather hurriedly, from http://www.takeonecff.com/about:

The Official Cambridge Film Festival & Arts Picturehouse Review

Take One is an independent film journal run by volunteers. It evolved in 2011 from the original Film Festival Daily as the official source of news, reviews and interviews on all films screened during the Cambridge Film Festival. The first hard copy issue of Take One was distributed around Cambridge on September 8th, and the website is set to run throughout the year. We are in the process of publishing unseen gems from CFF 2011 including interviews with John Hurt, Gary Oldman, Paddy Considine and Nicholas Winding Refn – not to mention friends you maybe haven’t met yet such as Jos Stelling and Simon Rumley.

We will be covering many events in Cambridge including the Silent Film Festival and Cambridge African Film Festival, keeping you abreast of all things Picturehouse and reporting back from events and film festivals around the world.

We pride ourselves in being quotable but un-hip, informative but not smug, and we won’t spoil endings. Stick around, chums.


QED


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Somehow I blinked... (1)

More views of - or after - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
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28 February

What appeared to be a Festival thing, TAKE ONE, has become a beast in its own right, under the banner Picturehouse Review:

Whether I should have known about this, and how I have just found it, I do not know, but it is at http://www.takeonecff.com/ for future reference...


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Festival publications (1) - updated update

More views of - or at (or before) - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
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9 September

There is now a link to the actual pages of TAKE ONE, so I need say no more than Happy reading!:
http://issuu.com/camfilmtrust/docs/takeone-08.09.11?mode=embed

Festival publications (1)

More views of - or at (or before) - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
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9 September

As well as the very well-presented Festival brochure (thanks to Tony Jones and his team), full of interesting information about what is showing, when, where, and what it will cost*, and available at the Picturehouse (or to download as a PDF file on the home-page) or at:
http://issuu.com/camfilmtrust/docs/cff31_brochure?mode=embed


there is also TAKE ONE, an eight-page A5 booklet, the first issue of which I found had come out to-day (and also available at the Picturehouse - or should I refer to it as Festival Central?).

I think that it is going replace the Festival Daily from previous years, and will appear less frequently (but I undertand that the on-line reviews are still going to be added every day).

As I have not yet found the text of the booklet on the Festival web-site**, I shall attempt to give a flavour of it later in lieu of a link, but can say for now that, amongst other things, it mentions:

* Dimensions (the whole inside front cover)

* Ace In The Hole (a half-page with Citizen Kane)

* Information about Jos Stelling (with a large photo) and the screening / Q&A

* Robin Hood (a full page - already shown under Films in the Forest, and now to be screened in Trinity College)

* The Camera That Changed The World (two-thirds of a page)


More of TAKE ONE (issue one) in due course - and, if there is one, a link... (now below**)



*Again, I recommend the Festival passes. For staff and customers alike, it was all a bit confusing at first, but it can now be stated: passes are on sale for £25, £50 or £75 (the last one is Blue, so I guess that the other two, in order, are Red and White, but just as easy to specify the value, I think), and you then receives that amount of credit.

Credit can only be used on festival screenings, so it is important to estimate accurately (not too much, not too little) how much will be spent overall. The chosen credit is stored on a card to spend by buying tickets, which (in addition to the discount from Picturehouse membership) gives, respectively, 20%, 25% and 30% off the ticket-price.

With the Blue card (and probably the £50 card, because some information appears contradictory), the holder also gets free tea and coffee at the bar, which - although not free beer - cannot be bad!


**Well, it's supposed to be there, and it has its own web-page, but it isn't just now:

http://www.cambridgefilmfestival.org.uk/review/festival-daily-online/