Philipp and Philip

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20 September

I can only guess that the end of Philipp was meant to shock, but, as we had been in that location before, and I had thought then of what happens, it didn’t. I also didn’t feel that it necessarily fitted (although it could have done), and that what was a very well-played portrayal by Max Hegewald of acute embarrassment and pain at the pretences and stupidities of life (largely because of being at home with his parents) could have had some other resolution.

The scenes between Christa (Vanessa Krüger) and Philipp, when allowed to be themselves (and not involved in silly family rubbish at the ice-cream parlour, almost inevitably the place to go to with a new person in polite German society), are very telling, and went well, as a pairing, with snatches of intimacy in what followed, Above us Only Sky (Über uns das All).

I found the heart of Philipp there, and, by contrast, recalled only all too well how a significant birthday in my own life had to be spent with not only my family, but my parents’ friends, and their jokes, attitudes, etc. – I felt unsure whose birthday it was (whose needs are met by this coming-of-age stuff?), and, at a later stage in life (when leaving a job), really didn’t want it marked by a present that I didn’t want just because that was the protocol of moving on.

For some of us, such feelings of awkwardness stay part of life, and many other films in this festival feed into each other’s themes in this regard: Black Butterflies, Tomboy, and Tirza seem to do this, too. Philip Larkin, not with any great insight, enlivened a pretty unremarkable poem with his well-known opening line ‘They fuck you up, your mum and dad’.


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Tomboy - no more, no less

This is a Festival review of Tomboy (2011)

More views of - or at - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

16 September

This is a Festival review of Tomboy (2011)

* Contains spoilers *

A note on paedophilia: according to the approach to school or church nativity plays that says that anyone wanting to film them cannot, because they could be directly editing their own pornography, we should not have been shown this film in which Laure / Mikael (Zoé Héran) and her / his sister Jeanne (enchantingly played by Malonn Lévana, with a real 'knowing innocence') are shown writhing around, as children do, and even having a bath. What nonsense !


This film encapsulates so much about childhood that, one imagines, is unlikely to change (or to have changed from when Céline Sciamma was a child): pretending / pretence (that one is stronger / cleverer than one is or that one's parents have fascinating jobs or large amounts of money); knowing that something will not work out, but not caring to think it through; a sense of foreboding when something that has to happen is being put off; being surprised; humiliation; secrets (and secret hiding-places); threatening to tell one's mother or making a deal not to tell; being confronted with what one has done, etc.

Incidentally, the film has as its centre a girl who can convincingly pass herself off as a boy (sometimes with prosthetic help!), who does so, attracted to the group of boys seen near the outset of living in a new house, and proving to be as good a footballer and to match their physical strength in other respects. It really does not matter why she does this, what she thinks will happen when she has to join the fourth grade, or even that it may - or may not - be read as a desire to be a boy (and later a man), rather than accepted as one.

I think the latter, that Laure hasn't thought it through, but doesn't want to face what Lisa was told when she wanted to play football, that she thinks. She doesn't think through what deceiving Lisa will do to her feelings, she just - without much heed to the consequences, except when she might have been caught out squatting to urinate and wets her shorts - sets out to be a boy. She does it, and the way that she draws Jeanne into the whole affair is utterly engaging, as are the scenes in which they have fun together outside Laure's plans. As I said, so many scenes that capture the essence of childhood and the childlike, with the issue of the particular path that Laure is following as Mikael very much secondary for me.

News from the Festival

More views of - or at (or before) - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


12 September

The Festival web-site now carries the following programme change for the opening night:

TOMBOY * Plus Director! * Now Thu 15 7.45pm (not 7.30)
“One of the great films made by adults for adults… about children” – Little White Lies Film Magazine. TOMBOY treats the issue of sexual identity at an early age with vivacity, grace and intelligence. French director Celine Sciamma (WATER LILIES) will be joining us!
Good news, I guess, for those who didn't get - or didn't want - a ticket for the Opening Film!

Festival publications (1) - a comment (or two)

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

Restraining the impulse to bring an eye trained in consistency too closely to bear, I shall just observe concerning TAKE ONE that:

* The Camera That Changed The World + Dont [sic] Look Back are on on as follows (not as stated, p.5): Monday 19 September at 3.30 p.m.

* The interview with Dimensions' director Sloane U'Ren is compelling (p. 1)

* There are other screenings than those listed of Tomboy (p. 4 - also on Friday 16 September at 12.45 p.m.) and Red State (p. 5 - also on Tuesday 20 September at 11.00 p.m.)

* Hugh Paterson's account of the 'forest screening' of Robin Hood was fun, and I look forward to making the film's acquaintance again in the Great Hall at Trinity

* Silent Running is being screened at 10.30 p.m. on Saturday 24 September (not in the morning)

* It would be good to apply 'a house style' to the presentation, outside of reviews and interviews, of dates and times


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Those CFF events (so far...)

7 September

Thursday 15

4.45 Ace In The Hole

8.00 Opening film: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (sold out)

Friday 16

12.45 Tomboy

3.15 Rembrandt Fecit 1669 (Jos S.)

8.00 The Illusionist (Jos S.)

11.00 The Day The Earth Caught Fire - decide on the night

Saturday 17

12.45 Jess + Moss

3.00 Black Butterflies

8.15 Jos Stelling in Conversation (Q&A)

10.30 Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark

Sunday 18

3.15 No Trains No Planes (Jos S.)

5.45 White White World

8.15 Burnout

Monday 19

1.00 Bombay Beach

3.30 The Camera That Changed The World + another

5.45 A Useful Life

10.30 Sympathy For Mr Vengeance - decide on the night

Tuesday 20

8.15 Drive

11.00 Red State - decide on the night

Wednesday 21

3.15 As If I Am Not There

8.15 Dimensions (sold out)

11.00 Wild Side - decide on the night

Thursday 22

12.30 The Seventh Seal

11.00 Bullhead - decide on the night

Friday 23

3.30 Jo For Jonathan

6.00 The Nine Muses

8.15 Gerhard Richter: Painting

10.30 Red White & Blue - decide on the night

Staurday (?) 24

12.30 Kosmos

8.00 Tyrannosaur

10.45 Guilty Of Romance - decide on the night

Sunday 25

3.15 Sleeping Beauty

6.00 Surprise Movie (probably sold out)

8.30 Closing film: The Look