“Haunting is one way in which abusive systems of power make themselves known and their impacts felt in everyday life, especially when they are supposedly over and done with (slavery, for instance) or when their oppressive nature is denied…” Avery F Gordon 
African Apocalypse is not your regular feature film, and throughout its <a href="https://player.bfi.org.uk/rentals/film/watch-african-apocalypse-2020-online">runtime of 88 minutes</a> it allows us to reflect and navigate the multifaceted space between documentary and historical drama in a way that is innovative, haunting and truly captivating.
The film itself is a non-fiction retelling of Joseph Conrad’s contentious novel Heart of Darkness and, like the book, the film highlights the brutal legacies of ‘civilised’ European expeditions during the height of colonial rule. I was fortunate enough to speak to both the director Rob Lemkin and the co-writer <a href="https://platformonline.uk/articles/author/femi-nylander/">Femi Nylander</a> shortly after the film’s release where we discussed the intricate plot and themes that are investigated throughout the film.
African Apocalypse starts off in Oxford as we are introduced to our narrator and guide, British-Nigerian activist and poet, Femi Nylander. Throughout the film we follow Femi and two other local guides on a personal and spiritual journey through the country of Niger to unearth the cruel legacy of the French imperial captain, Paul Voulet.
Voulet’s story begins in 1899 when he is tasked with securing the Chad Basin to unite all of the French territories in West Africa; however, whilst undertaking this mission, Voulet went rogue leaving behind a trail of death and destruction in his wake. Throughout Femi’s voyage across Niger, we encounter the Hausa people, who were deeply affected by the violence. The Hausa people are the largest ethnic group located throughout north-western Nigeria and Niger. They are well known for their agricultural practices and exquisite craftsmanship and a vast majority of the population can be found in rural locations. In order for Voulet to complete his excursion he had to cross their land and this is where things began to get worse. The story of Voulet and his destructive expedition may not be well known in the west, but the descendants of the Hausa people have not forgotten. They have not forgotten how Voulet and his men rounded up their families and committed unspeakable evils. They have not forgotten the stories of how Voulet decimated villages – and those of you who watch this film will surely not forget too.

What I found so astounding about the film was how effortlessly it explores a multitude of political issues, such as France using the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/07/macron-francafrique-170721190500965.html">Franco-African</a> policy to mine and export Uranium ore for over 40 years, as well as the economic and political fallout that follows the creation of borders, human rights, ecological destruction, and the generational trauma that looms over the afflicted communities. The themes that African Apocalypse explores are multi-faceted and complex, but what the film achieves is that it opens up a dialogue about the repercussions of colonial violence and gives the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hausa">Hausa people</a> a chance to tell their side of the story to the world.
In a strange way Rob and Femi’s work truly captivated me, particularly as I saw myself in Femi. As a Black British citizen with Jamaican heritage, my very existence within the British Isles is predicated on Britain’s colonial past, and the same applies to a large majority of us, as <a href="https://www.ourmigrationstory.org.uk/">migration has played a huge role</a> in shaping Britain as we know it today. To be a Black person or person of colour, exploring the forgotten histories of colonialism that intersect with one’s own history repeatedly forces one to encounter a range of emotions – emotions that more often than not lead one to feel like they are being be split in two. This moment of fragmentation is elaborated by the late <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/frantz-fanon/">Frantz Fanon</a> in his text, Black Skin, White Masks, where he recalls a similar feeling of being torn asunder by the weight of the history of race: “I was responsible not only for my body but also for my race and my ancestors. I cast an objective gaze over myself, discovered my blackness, my ethnic features; deafened by cannibalism, backwardness, fetishism, racial stigmas, slave traders, and above all, yes, above all, the grinning Y a bon Banania.” Blackness and Britishness, or even Blackness and European identity are not always understood to be synonymous. Although this is not the core focus of the film, it is a theme that is explored rather naturally, and it is a feeling that many Black people, people of colour and those with dual heritage living in the west will be able to relate to.

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AA0038 2015 trip roll 20150115235356 Old man in doorway TC 03513022

This feeling of being split in two is referred to as “double consciousness” by 20th-century thinker W. E. B.Du Bois (and, more recently, British historian Paul Gilroy). Du Bois writes in his book The Souls of Black Folk: “It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others… One ever feels his twoness, – an American, a N****; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”
During our interview, I asked Femi how he felt the notion of double consciousness impacted him, and the way he interacted with those around him during the making of the film. “What I think is shown on screen is how transformative the experience was and that happened in such an accelerated way due to the filming process,” Femi remarked. “I became more and more comfortable, and was able to interact more naturally with the people of the region. And I think that process was made easier as being someone of West African heritage, of Nigerian heritage, so literally just from the neighbouring country. Being able to then integrate, learn more about the culture and sing with the people was much easier to do than if you’re coming in as a complete outsider.”
The fact that the film has emerged during such a pivotal <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/29/britain-glorify-violent-past-defensive-empire-drug">political awakening</a> in our current moment is not insignificant – Femi himself was an organising member of the ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ movement in Oxford and we’ve seen this come full circle with the international <a href="https://www.the-platform.org.uk/2020/06/07/the-closing-credits-of-black-lives/">Black Lives Matter</a> protests of 2020 and the removal of statues of slaveowners beginning with <a href="https://gal-dem.com/i-didnt-think-2020-would-have-me-crying-tears-of-joy-at-the-death-of-a-statue-but-here-we-are/">Edward Colston</a> in Bristol. I asked both Rob and Femi whether they thought the film was a salute to the decolonisation of knowledge and a challenge to European accounts of history. Rob answered, “I think that the film has a two-fold impact… In so far as we&#8217;re letting Nigerians and the Hausa people tell their own story, and we&#8217;re giving them a platform to tell their stories. And secondly, because we&#8217;re telling the story of Europe, very critically, we&#8217;re saying, this is also a story about France, and it&#8217;s not a pretty one.”
African Apocalypse perfectly slots into the conversation of ongoing colonial violence in the global context. Speaking further about the film’s timing, Femi comments: “There have been a number of conversations about colonialism happening all over the world last summer and even before. Statues of <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/a17b87ec-207d-4aa7-a839-8e17153bcf51">Leopold of Belgium</a>, who is referenced in the film, have been coming down in Belgium, and colonialism has become a hot topic. If the film had come out at another time, then the idea would have been for the film to have sparked a conversation about colonialism. Whereas now, it kind of slides into an ongoing conversation, which I think is good.”
The non-fiction re-telling African Apocalypse takes us on a historical and emotive journey. It breaks down a number of topics that some may shy away from for being too academic or too violent to explore. The film opens up the conversation of colonialism and the lasting impact that it has on particular communities around the world. If you are ready to delve into the conversation, African Apocalypse is a must watch.
African Apocalypse is now streaming on <a href="https://player.bfi.org.uk/rentals/film/watch-african-apocalypse-2020-online">BFI Player</a>.

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Crowd on hill

Femi abattoir

Our writer sits down with director Rob Lemkin and co-writer Femi Nylander to discuss their new film African Apocalypse which takes viewers on an emotive historical journey

Confronting the Heart of Darkness in New Film African Apocalypse

Farewell Amor is the debut feature from filmmaker Ekwa Msangi. The film explores how physical separation and the passing of time impacts people and relationships, as well as the tragedy of displacement and how to maintain a sense of self when, in order to survive, the best option might be to fit in.
Farewell Amor, directed and written by Msangi, begins with a family reuniting in the arrivals hall of a New York airport. After 17 years of separation, Walter (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine) is able to bring his wife Esther (Zainab Jah) and daughter Sylvia (Jayme Lawson) to New York City where he has been residing. The family became displaced at the end of a war (possibly the Angolan civil war though it’s never referred to by name). As Walter obtains asylum in the US, his family remains in Africa and seeks refuge in Tanzania. It takes almost two decades for the family to be reunited.

I speak with Msangi over Zoom in early December, the tail-end of an unexpectedly difficult year for many. The global pandemic may have overshadowed all other tragedies, but it has not diminished other global issues. More and more people globally are finding themselves displaced. Anti-immigrant sentiment remains a deplorable constant in the west. Farewell Amor touches on an aspect of immigration that isn’t given space in popular media, namely family separation and the lengthy ordeal that often precedes a reunion. “The reasons that [many displaced people’s] home countries are so unliveable has to do with a lot of [western] foreign policies to begin with,” Msangi states. “I don&#8217;t believe that there is any person anywhere in the world who would just prefer to leave their home and their loves and their families and everything they know, to go somewhere that&#8217;s cold and does not want them.”
Msangi tells me that the film is partly inspired by her aunt and uncle who married in Tanzania in the mid-90s. Soon after their wedding, Msangi’s uncle received a student visa for the US and left Tanzania with every intention of bringing his wife and, at that point, their five-month-old right after him. To this day, Msangi’s aunt and uncle have been stuck in an endless cycle of visa applications, lasting over two decades now. “I was inspired by this, ‘what if’ story,” Msangi recalls. “What if the visas are no longer the issue? I just had this image of my uncle at the arrivals hall at the airport, waiting for my aunt and my cousin. What would he say? What would he be thinking? Would he recognise them? How do you receive the love of your life, after all these years? And what would have changed in your life, too — what would you have to be sweeping away in order to make space for this family to arrive?”

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While viewing this film, I found myself reflecting on my family and our histories. I haven&#8217;t experienced exactly the type of separation we see in this film, though I&#8217;ve witnessed something similar in my extended family. My immediate family and I left Africa together. I have aunts, uncles and cousins that made the journey alone to different parts of the world where they&#8217;ve established themselves and a new life. Some family members are still unable to visit the homes they left for reasons that frustrate even the most patient. Immigration is an illogical phenomenon. Many rules and criteria change on the whims of anti-immigrant governments, while individuals wait for so long for the security and relief of certainty.
The longer you’re away, the harder it can be to go back. Perhaps it is easier to want to stay with the memory of “home” and family as it was, and to be hesitant about reuniting with a changed country and changed people. In Farewell Amor, we observe Walter adopt the customs of his new country and struggle to empathise with his wife Esther, who represents what he left behind. After being uprooted from her home and separated from her husband, Esther finds solace and community in the church. Her beliefs provide her with the security and safety she needs but are shown in moments to be at odds with her new adopted home and transformed husband.

People adapt and assimilate, maybe for survival or out of preference for a life different to the one they left. It is almost unavoidable, especially when many western countries enforce assimilation through law or make living difficult if you do not fit in. Culture and individuality are praised when used for entertainment or aesthetic reasons. But in the areas of life that impact livelihood like education and work, personal expression is often limited or punished. As people, we are naturally drawn to the path of least resistance; we can’t judge anyone for doing what they feel they need to do to survive.
Walter has changed in subtle ways, particularly in how he speaks and the food he prepares. Farewell Amor explores the very complex question of what happens when you’re reunited with a person whose memories of you ceased to change from the moment you left? Phone and video calls are too sporadic and distant to provide a complete picture of growth. When you’re not present for those changes a person undergoes with time, you cannot adapt to them. So the people you are reunited with are as familiar as they are strange.

How are strong bonds like those between husband and wife, child and parent impacted by physical separation? Especially when separation divides parties in different social and political environments that impact people’s outlook on life. Personal relationships are hard enough without the added obstacle of separation. Leaving for a life elsewhere is not as simple as raising the money and buying a ticket. Immigration officials and rules will see to that. Msangi points out that many people have approached her to say they did not know this before seeing the film. The formal processes for starting a new life elsewhere, or bringing family once you’ve successfully managed to obtain asylum, is a matter of producing a lot of paperwork and paying a lot of money. After all this, nothing is guaranteed. For many displaced people this formality isn&#8217;t an option. The need for safety is urgent. Many take dangerous and life-threatening routes to secure a better life.
Being a young person experiencing a move like the one in Farewell Amor in this day and age is particularly interesting. Sylvia is a hopeful character for me because she seems almost the most equipped to handle this big change, thanks to technology. The internet exposes and allows us to connect with cultures so different from our own via a few clicks. At best, we find ourselves engaging with art (particularly music) and customs or cultures we may never have interacted with otherwise. But if we do, we have the knowledge and insight to be respectful and participate. “I felt very connected to Sylvia&#8217;s character in terms of being in a new environment and the culture shock; of being a young person and trying to have your own voice, but not really knowing what your voice is yet,” Msangi explains. “For me [like Sylvia], dance and music was definitely a saving grace. It was a place where I could be really confident and be myself and show myself.”

In Farewell Amor, Msangi tells an important story about an African immigrant family. Despite the heavier implications of the film, it is hopeful and warm. The thing about family bonds, no matter what, is that people mostly find a way to reconnect regardless of the obstacles that may be in the way. “For me, it&#8217;s a pleasure to tell authentic stories about my people,” Msangi says. “The whole reason I became a filmmaker was because I grew up in a time on the African continent where I never got to see images of me or the people around me or anything that was familiar. It was all imported stories about other folks. And that didn&#8217;t make any kind of sense to me, because I was surrounded by fun, exciting, interesting, creative people all day long.”
“We&#8217;re more than just trials and tribulations. The idea of telling stories about our people, not just on the continent, but everywhere in the diaspora, to me is super interesting and exciting.”
Farewell Amor (2020) is available to stream online through <a href="https://mubi.com/films/farewell-amor?gclid=CjwKCAiA25v_BRBNEiwAZb4-ZfdHblijbIbdgBlUeOxLfYvDJIBKGArUM3T_FhQrEAjX2tB6GPfejBoCD7YQAvD_BwE">Mubi</a> and is also available on <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=&amp;ved=2ahUKEwjYlLi82u7tAhX1uXEKHQk2BCUQFjAAegQIAhAC&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.netflix.com%2Ftd-en%2Ftitle%2F81336593&amp;usg=AOvVaw2lJc7kuPOnaZm3n-JSCca7">Netflix</a> in Africa.
<pre>Photo Credit: IFC Films / Farewell Amor</pre>

farewell-amor

Our writer speaks to Ekwa Msangi about her debut feature Farewell Amor, which explores the pressure of immigration on families, including the loss of a sense of self and home.

Farewell Amor: Fitting In and Back Together Again

The release of the documentary film, Ultraviolence, is a timely one. The deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in early 2020 sparked worldwide protests and put a spotlight on the treatment of Black people at the hands of the police. Yet these killings and those that came before, in the US as well as the UK, are not new incidents. For the friends and families of the victims that have been murdered by the police it is a story that is familiar and sadly keeps on repeating.
Ken Fero speaks to me over a Zoom meeting, as is the custom in these coronavirus aware times: “I can see all the changes that are happening, I can see that obviously there are lots more schemes happening and mentoring schemes for Black people and equality in representation, decolonising the curriculum, all that stuff, that’s all good. It has to happen. But the issue around [deaths in] police custody, it’s almost like it’s been forgotten or ignored. That’s why the Black Lives Matter Movement started. So Ultraviolence is trying to remind people what this is all really about.”
Ultraviolence uses CCTV recordings and real footage to show us the cruel nature of the UK legal system that protects the police officers responsible for the deaths of the innocent. The film takes us through a number of murder cases and the legal processes surrounding them.
Christopher Alder, 37, an ex-paratrooper and computer skills student, was arrested on the night of the 1st of April 1998, for being aggressive toward hospital staff. Prior to this, on that same night, he received a severe blow to the head while at a nightclub, which is said to have caused his aggressiveness. After being arrested, he was hauled into the police station, handcuffed, and left on the floor, while police officers laughed and joked at the reception desk. Christopher died moments later on the floor of the station. This is all captured on CCTV.
Brian Douglas, 33, who on 2nd of May 1995, while driving through South London with his friend, was stopped and searched by police officers Mark Tuffey and Paul Harrison. During the incident both were assaulted by police officers using the then new long-handled baton. Brian’s friend, Stafford, received a broken wrist. Brian himself suffered a severe blow to the head giving him a fractured skull, injuries that led to his death in hospital shortly after.
The infamous case of Jean Charles da Silva e de Menezes, who, on 22nd of July 2005, was shot in the head at Stockwell Underground Station by police officers who mistook him for a terror suspect. His murder came at the height of increased tension due to the July 7th bombings (7/7) which had happened two weeks previously.

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Ultraviolence Janet Alder (L) sister of Christopher Alder with Ken Fero UV film director S

Other cases that this film touches upon include Paul Coker, who died in August 2005 in a cell at Plumstead Police Station after being restrained by 10 officers. At the time he was suffering from excited delirium/acute behavioural disorder. Rather than assessing him and deciding he needed medical attention, police arrested him instead for creating a disturbance. Roger Sylvester died on 11th of January 1999 in a psychiatric hospital after police officers handcuffed him and held him down for twenty minutes. As a result, he suffered a heart attack, lapsed into a coma and died a week later. The list of victims is not confined to one race either. On 22nd of September 1999, Harry Stanley, a white Scottish painter and decorator, was shot in the head by police marksmen after they were misinformed that Mr Stanley had a sawn-off shotgun.
What all these murders have in common is that, to this day, none of the police officers responsible have been charged, dismissed from duty or held accountable for these deaths.
This film doesn’t simply tell us what a tragedy these incidents are. It goes much further in order to expose a system that is devoid of justice for those families who have had a loved one murdered while in custody.
Director Ken Faro tells me: “It&#8217;s about saying the names of the police officers. And that&#8217;s a big difference between what we do in our films and what everybody else does in this country, because no other filmmaker will go as far as we have in terms of actually naming and showing [the] police officers [responsible]. What we&#8217;re interested in is what these officers have done, and how come they&#8217;ve got away with it.”
Ken adds that the media is not dealing with the roots of racism in the police force. “What we wanted to do with this film is to challenge.” In fact, he does just that and throws out a challenge. “I would challenge [the mainstream media] to show Ultraviolence. The time seems to be now. Nobody could have given them this kind of film at the most perfect moment. But they won’t go for it. For me, they are just as responsible.”

He goes further still to extend this responsibility. “I think the people have got responsibility as well. Everybody in this country has got responsibility to actually challenge the brutality that is being done in their name. One of the strongest slogans during the summer was ‘silence is violence’. That was just everywhere and that&#8217;s true. So what this film is trying to do is break the silence in any way possible.”
In Ultraviolence, we also see the struggle that siblings of the victims, Janet Alder and Brenda Weinberg, sisters of Christopher Alder and Brian Douglas respectively, are faced with as they talk to the CPS and IPCC. They demand to know why nothing has been done to convict their brothers’ murderers. Instead, they receive the message that the police are above the law.
“[We] got fed up with victim stories,” Ken states. “That’s all the media does. And we said no, that can&#8217;t happen. Because there&#8217;s always resistance. And that&#8217;s why we started <a href="https://vimeo.com/migrantmedia">Migrant Media</a> [his film company]. That&#8217;s why this film is about people that fight back.”
Ken believes there will always be resistance. The families who campaign for justice are heroes. But all too soon we forget them, we move on to the next issue, and the problem will be allowed to continue.
“Where we are now with deaths in police custody, the state I think will protect [police] officers at any cost,” Ken says. “I think we could be having 200 or 300 deaths in custody, and nothing would happen from the government’s point of view. And that&#8217;s what worries me. Where we are right now, especially with this <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-intelligence-agents-crimes-undercover-b556205.html">Bill that Boris Johnson has just put through</a> [that will give new powers to public authorities, including the police and the Serious Fraud Office, to commit crimes while working undercover], which will allow anybody that works for the state to basically get away with murder.”
Director of human rights organisation Reprieve, Maya Foa, also <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-intelligence-agents-crimes-undercover-b556205.html">comments on this Bill</a> stating: “Our intelligence agencies do a vital job in keeping the country safe, but there must be common sense limits to their agents’ activities, and we hope MPs will ensure these limits are written into the legislation.”
Sadly, it looks like we will be saying the names of even more victims in the not-so-distant future, but when we do, we should also say the names of the police officers that committed the crimes and repeat those names until the legal system finally holds them accountable.
Stay updated on upcoming Ultraviolence film screenings via the website at <a href="http://www.ultraviolencefilm.com/">www.ultraviolencefilm.com</a> or on Instagram <a href="https://www.instagram.com/migrantmedia/">@migrantmedia</a>.
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<pre>Photo Credit: Migrant Media</pre>

Ultraviolence by Ken Fero &#8211; Brenda Weinberg (R) sister of Brian Douglas

An interview with Ken Fero, director of a new documentary film that seeks to uncover the names behind deaths in UK police custody

An Interview with Ken Fero: Spotlight on UK Deaths in Police Custody in Ultraviolence

Director Francis Lee attempts to explore the rawness of human connection in this British costume drama based on the life of historical figure Mary Anning, in a film that ends up falling just a little bit short of winning our hearts. Ammonite’s enticing cast and bold narrative themes meant that the groundwork for a deep love story was definitely there, its execution just failed to seize the intimacy and emotion that resided in its potential.
A beach cast in ashy hues of grey and blue is the birthplace of discovery for fossil hunter Mary Anning (Kate Winslet). Set in the 1840s, she spends her days treading the rocks of Lyme Regis, with nothing but the wailing gales, tumbling waves and her mother, Molly (Gemma Jones), for company. She lives a solitary life pursuing palaeontology, but the sexism that plagues the industry expels Mary into the mundanity of selling seashell-encrusted trinkets to tourists.
When Roderick Murchison (James McArdle) arrives unannounced requesting to work alongside Mary and enrich his fossil hunting experience, she begrudgingly agrees knowing the disturbance this will bring to her gloomy yet contented life, imbued with routine and order. However, it is not the presence of Roderick that breaks the peace, it is his wife Charlotte (Saoirse Ronan).
Charlotte and Roderick’s relationship is void of intimacy. His controlling, abusive and oppressive manner sucks the life out of her. She is presented to us like an empty shell, much like the ones Mary collects and half-heartedly glues onto mirrors and jewellery boxes. Skin like paper and glassy-eyed, Charlotte is suffering from “a mild melancholia” according to Roderick, so he suggests that she stay with Mary in Lyme Regis as a form of therapy, the sea air her medicine and Mary her life support. The motif of fossils is used to represent Mary’s overdue unearthing of lesbian identity, buried by societal taboo and untold history.
Lee is no stranger to portraying queer love stories, with his debut God’s Own Country (2017) delving into male homosexuality with poignancy and sensitivity. This time, Ammonite’s two exceptional leads are what elevate the otherwise lacking story. Ronan plays Charlotte with a lovable grace; our hearts ache at her lows and soar at her highs. Winslet is unrecognisable as Mary, one which will likely be viewed as the best in her career. We can relate to her character even though her story is so detached from our realities, and understand her with very little dialogue.
It would be expected that two brilliant performances would make for an impactful chemistry. However, there is an air of unbelievability to the pair’s dynamic. Their romance is like a wave crashing to the shore, slow-building and over all too quickly. It felt like the narrative was rushed as the physical side of their relationship didn’t appear until halfway through the film; the build-up was certainly there but it can only go so far as a form of storytelling.
At times, the choreography of homoeroticism seems to feed into an unrealistic portrayal of female pleasure. If more time was devoted to the women growing to understand each other’s bodies and letting us linger in the intimacy, their chemistry would have felt more authentic.
Ammonite’s devotion to exploring the beauty of human connection makes erotic display all the more fundamental and it’s a shame it didn’t have the same impact as other scenes. Idyllic shots of iridescence as the pair frolic in the ocean depicts one of the rare instances where the colour palette warms and Mary’s face does too. Ammonite could have benefitted from more scenes like this, giving the sex scenes more of an emotional purpose, and moving away from voyeurism and closer to meaning.
The buzz around this film was partly due to it baring similarities to Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire released earlier this year. Although this conjured excitement, it may also have led to Ammonite’s downfall. Intimacy is something Sciamma depicts beautifully within a sensory experience, and although Lee tries to explore this using a similar technique, it doesn’t quite create the same immersion due to the importance he places on guesswork and tension. Yet both films effectively use a lack of dialogue to pay homage to a history of people forced to repress their sexuality and hide their stories. Living in silence, but still living nonetheless.
In this light, Mary Anning was a real palaeontologist and her sexuality remains ambiguous. There is no proof that she shared such a relationship with real-life geologist Charlotte Murchison but creative treatment is a wonderful thing. Using Mary’s story as a vessel for a homosexual romance between two interesting and intelligent women, set during a time when this would have been taboo, remains important for queer representation.
Ammonite is an example of a film’s on-screen talent upstaging the narrative. Without Winslet and Ronan dedicating themselves to the roles, the film would sadly be painfully average. Lee’s thought-provoking characters promise a crucial journey of discovery but its fixation on build-up and lack of affection stands in the way of us truly falling in love with the union. In the same way Mary digs through pebbles and mud to find something of significance, Ammonite needed to dig a little deeper.
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<pre>Photo Credit: Ammonite </pre>

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Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan put on a great performance in Ammonite, but their love story lacks intimacy.

Ammonite: A Stony Forbidden Love

We reported <a href="https://www.the-platform.org.uk/2020/10/06/the-platform-preview-to-the-bfi-london-film-festival-2020/">earlier this month</a> that the London Film Festival would be a more intimate affair than usual, much of it at home, with no gala performances and a smaller selection of films.
Of course, the festival did still have its headline acts. Ammonite, its closing finale, was a touching tale of love set in 1840s Lyme Regis (which we will review at greater length soon), with Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan as its leads. It was an effective if conventional choice, like the festival opener, Steve McQueen’s historical recreation Mangrove. Personally, I found McQueen’s other entry to the festival, Lovers Rock, more interesting, although a minor film and a kind of ‘B-side’ to Mangrove. McQueen’s genius is more for establishing a certain setting than in plot and it is put to especially good use in this almost non-narrative film of a Ladbroke Grove house party thrown at some point in the 1980s.
In the absence of an official competition the online audience picked the festival winner, awarding the prize to Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round, about a group of schoolteachers who realise that their job is more fun if they drink every day. While there’s no arguing with taste I found this somewhat moralistic film a rather white, male and middle-aged choice compared to the diversity that the festival had put effort into displaying elsewhere.
The clear winner for me of the more crowd-pleasing films was the gorgeous, touching, One Night in Miami. Based on a stage play by first-time director Regina King, it imagines a meeting in a Miami hotel room between Cassius Clay, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown, as they each contemplate a life changing decision: Clay to join the Muslim Brotherhood and Malcolm to leave it, Cooke to address social change in his music and Brown to depart the NFL to try a career in Hollywood. The decisions are as personal as they are political, and its central question – what does black success mean in a white society – is made to resound with a contemporary relevance despite the retro setting.
However, the festival is a chance to see films which won’t ever get the red carpet treatment. So here’s my list of six of the best to look out for beyond the big releases:

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one night in miami

<h5>UNDINE 
Dir. Christian Petzold (Germany/France)</h5>
Undine turns the conventional romance of a random city encounter into an absorbing and ultimately disquieting tale of love and pain. It will be familiar territory for viewers already acquainted with director Christian Petzold and lead actress Paula Beer, but it develops his concern with Europe’s historical scars in a more allegorical direction. Its lead character, Undine, is a guide to the architectural history of Berlin and is named after a water nymph of ancient legend. She becomes a figure who skirts the enigmatic realms of fantasy and disappointment, memory and myth.
<h5>NEVER GONNA SNOW AGAIN 
Dir. Małgorzata Szumowska, Michael Englert (Poland/Germany)</h5>
Another film that holds a delicate balance between social commentary and fantasy is this film about a Ukranian masseur who accrues a cult following in a wealthy Polish suburb. Born in Pripyat in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster, masseur Zhenia seems at first like he might have arrived as part of a moral lesson about migrant labour for the privileged members of the gated community, who simultaneously depend upon and look down on him. But as they fetishise the healing power of his tender strength, the near-wordless presence of this mysterious outsider comes to take on an altogether different, almost magical-realist quality, as the possibly sacred emissary of some cosmic power.
<h5>THE INTRUDER 
Dir. Natalia Meta (Argentina/Mexico)</h5>
This Argentine film takes its enigmas in a creepier direction. Starting out in comic vein as a woman realises that she doesn’t actually like the man she has gone on holiday with, his death soon after their arrival paradoxically makes him someone she can never truly be rid of. Meanwhile, she becomes the subject of the rather insistent attentions of an admirer she meets in the church where she sings, and, in a further inconvenience, her mother randomly decides to move in indefinitely. As a voiceover artist for horror films, this film is also part of a sub-genre of thrillers about a sound recordist, along with Blow Out, The Conversation and Berberian Sound Studio, that explore the eerily disembodied nature of the voice. The intruder of the title could thus be any one of a number of uncomfortably close beings, including her relationship to her own physical self.
<h5>A COMMON CRIME 
Dir. Francisco Márquez (Argentina)</h5>
This second Argentine thriller is another imaginative recreation of the slow falling apart of the boundaries, and the sanity, of its central female protagonist, but the dissolution here reveals a series of uncomfortable truths about social class. Cecilia is a university lecturer, happily able to quote Althusser and Gramsci on bourgeois ideology. But when her maid’s son knocks on her door, her refusal to help him has fateful consequences. While showing up her conformity to the ultimately brutal logic that it is her day job to critique, this is also the first film I have ever seen that manages to find dramatic material in a dissertation supervision session, and a superb combination of psychological and political insight.
<h5>AFTER LOVE 
Dir. Aleem Khan (UK)</h5>
The success of this deeply moving British drama owes in large part to the central performance of Joana Scanlan, who plays Mary Husain, a resident of Dover whose ferry-captain husband Husain dies unexpectedly in the opening sequence, only for her to find out that he had a secret life just over the border in Calais. The film follows her as she works her way into the household of his secret mistress and son. While such a plot would in less capable hands be barely credible, the quiet brilliance of Scanlan’s performance means that the themes of betrayal, race, death and mourning are played with intelligent subtlety and heart-breaking conviction.
<h5>LIMBO 
Dir. Ben Sharrock (UK)</h5>
It was a good year for British features, as shown by this comedy-drama about refugees seeking asylum in Scotland. What begins as a deadpan, rather absurdist culture-clash comedy turns to an intense portrait of the tragedies of dislocation. The humour’s absurdism is a nice way to show up both the awkwardness of cultural awareness and the bureaucratic cruelty of the exile situation. But it reaches real emotional depth in its second half as it probes the travails of Omar, a gifted young musician and Syrian refugee who must contend with the family he has left behind, the war he has fled and the music he may never play again.

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Limbo Film 2020

<pre>Featured: LIMBO by Ben Sharrock</pre>

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A Chernobyl-born cult leader, a hypocritical university lecturer, and a Syrian musician turned refugee are some of the memorable characters in our selection from this year’s London Film Festival.

Six of the Best from the BFI London Film Festival, 2020

What does a film festival do when festivity is banned?
It is often said that crises lead to change, but the changes we make when in crisis mode reveal our essential natures more than any planned or premeditated actions do. In the classic 1978 film Dawn of the Dead, when the US suburbs are infected by a zombie apocalypse, the mindless hordes continue to perform the one habitual ability they have left: they go to the mall. In times of coronavirus, when the higher functions of sociability are denied and even the malls close down, we go en masse online.
Lockdown has been a boom time for streaming services like Netflix and Amazon, whose captive global audience is of a scale that dwarfs the ‘Major Studios’ of Hollywood yore. But while film may be thriving as entertainment, cinema as an institution is in grave peril, its production halted; and theatrical exhibition trickled to a socially-distanced minimum.
The Cannes Festival <a href="https://ew.com/movies/film-festivals/cannes-2020-special-event-october/">cancelled</a> all its offline events as a response to the first wave of the pandemic back in June. If our autumn heralds a grim sequel to those early summer times, the BFI London Film Festival’s hybrid programme seeks to avoid such disruption, balancing online and in-person activity in a way that is neither lockdown nor normality. Tickets are on sale to reduced-capacity auditoriums over the festival. Around 100 fewer feature films are being exhibited this year, with only 58 titles to choose from and no Official Competition category. While film production was halted internationally this year, this slow-down will only really be apparent at next year’s festival. This year, one can assume that the larger distribution companies have decided to scale back their involvement, given that there are far fewer A-list titles than usual. Presumably the expense involved in shipping over the big stars and movie talent, plus all of the other promotional activities that the big companies usually devote to a festival, must not seem like a great investment when you’re playing to limited audiences, with no red carpet or gala events.
The withdrawal of the big-money releases leaves a more intimate and perhaps more diverse festival, which will play across the country both in cinemas and on streaming services. The festival opens with 12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen’s Mangrove, an appropriate choice to coincide with Black History Month, centring on the landmark true-life battle of Black activists <a href="https://platformonline.uk/articles/frank-crichlow-and-the-mangrove">&#8216;The Mangrove Nine&#8217;</a> against police racism. It ends with Ammonite, about palaeontologist Mary Anning, played by Kate Winslet (co-starring Saoirse Ronan). Both of these films indicate the continuing importance of historical drama to prestige British cinema.
The big festival-circuit hit playing this year is Nomadland, a chronicle of recession-era America starring Frances McDormand, winner of both the Toronto and Venice festivals this summer. In a historical what-if, Regina King’s One Night in Miami puts Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, James Brown and Sam Cooke together for in a hotel room one evening in 1964. An artistic partnership we eagerly anticipate is Spike Lee’s direction of Talking Heads singer David Byrne in American Utopia, a film of the Broadway musical. Meanwhile Supernova promises a two-hander between Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci, both of whom advance previews report to be on top form.
Riz Ahmed stars as a British-Pakistani rapper who suffers a life-threatening illness in Mogul Mowgli. I also look forward to Relic, the directorial debut for Natalie Erika James and another entry into the increasingly rich body of contemporary horror cinema directed by women. Bad Tales promises a cynical take on human nature amid a group of family dramas set over one summer, a film made up of episodes and, thus, a format which seems to be making a comeback after films like Wild Tales, Certain Women and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. I am also hoping it will provide a sighting of that <a>increasingly rare animal</a>, a modern Italian film worth getting excited about.
No contemporary director is better at bearing the continuing scars of Europe’s unhappy past than Christian Petzold, and so we are keen to watch Undine, a Berlin-set romance whose title refers to a mythic water nymph. Never Gonna Snow Again appears to be an intriguing Polish-German social satire on migration. Farewell Amor promises a more earnest, heartrending tale of exile as an Angolan man is reunited with his wife and daughter in New York.
From the still images I’ve seen, the Irish animation Wolfwalkers seems to be a beautifully inventive rendition of myth and legend in a time of colonialism. The festival also features a restoration of the banned and once presumed lost 1976 Iranian gothic film Chess of the Wind.
Perhaps the escapism of cinema and its grand picture palaces was always a historically limited model, destined one day inevitably to lose ground to the individualised, private sphere of the home. With video-on-demand already being the major way in which we watch films, driving the continuing proliferation of screen media into our homes, on our laps and our mobile devices, we were already a long way from the larger-than-life communal experience of the picture palace well before Covid-19 hit. The hybrid events at the festival, its nationwide reach and its more intimate roster suggest that even crisis can be a spur to new experiences and continued invention. We shall be back with our verdicts after a few weeks of assiduous home viewing.
The BFI London Film Festival takes place <a href="https://www.bfi.org.uk/london-film-festival/strands/feature-films" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.bfi.org.uk/london-film-festival/strands/feature-films&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1602061595870000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGioY1LUoVY_lvsmJtNPPihA-QLhA">7 to 18 October 2020</a>. 
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<pre>Photo Credit: Nomadland</pre>

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Our film editor Dr Louis Bayman previews the selection at this year’s online version of the BFI London Film Festival.

The Platform Preview to the BFI London Film Festival, 2020

ROCKS, created collaboratively by a mostly female cast and creative team, is a film that leaves a permanent impression. ROCKS’ impact is two-fold. Firstly, it is a story full of hope and joy that captures the essence of friendship. Secondly, it is a film made with immense generosity – a collaborative endeavour that everyone who took part in is proud of and sets a precedent for other filmmakers.
I was drawn to ROCKS from the moment I saw the poster. I saw myself and my city and that was enough to convince me that I had to see this film. The diversity of the young actors is remarkable only because it’s so rarely seen in film, not because it’s an unusual sight for any Londoner. I would be remiss not to mention what an important film ROCKS is for this very reason: ROCKS is, for many women like myself, the first time we’ll be seeing ourselves on the big screen.
Set in East London, the film follows teenager Rocks, a young girl with big dreams of starting her own make-up business and a great set of friends. Her world changes when one day she returns home from school to find that her mother is gone, leaving some money and a note saying she’s sorry.
Director Sarah Gavron and Producer Faye Ward discussed the idea of making a film with and about teenage girls, and recognised early on that such a film would need to be created in a collaborative way. The young cast, who had the experience of being teenage girls, and other creatives&#8217; voices, influenced the filmmaking process. I spoke with Anu Henriques, Associate Director of ROCKS, who formed was involved from the very early stages of the film.
“ROCKS is one story of hundreds of thousands of stories that we could have told that centres young Black and brown women from London,” Anu remarks. “Hopefully people walk away [from seeing the film] feeling encouraged to tell their own story and question why it has taken this long for us to have our stories told in this way.”
The creative team initially set out on an extensive development stage which involved research and work-shopping with young Londoners across girls’ comprehensives and youth hubs. It was in the midst of this process that writer Teresa Ikoko shared a story idea that resonated with the team and young cast. Ikoko describes the story as a love letter to her older sister and the Black women she was raised with. On sharing her idea with the creative team and the cast, Anu recalls, “[Teresa] shared it in such a generous way that meant that we were able to kind of bring our own love letters to the table as well.” And so, a project they could take towards production was born. Ikoko, along with writer Claire Wilson, set to work on the story arc of the film.
The entire creative team had the chance to share their opinions and ideas for different scenes. “In some of the workshops we ran we would stick up every single story beat on the walls,” Anu recounts. “I imagine this is one of the most nerve-wracking things as a writer, to kind of put your heart on a wall and then have people pick it apart and put it back together again. But [Ikoko and Wilson] were very generous in offering that up and creating a space where everyone felt like their voice was valued and their voice mattered and what they brought to the table was valued.”

This approach is radical for many reasons. The film industry is hierarchical and many openly sneer at the idea of any person with an assigned ‘role’ stepping out of their responsibilities and having input elsewhere. The ROCKS team instead insisted on the cast and creatives sharing their thoughts. The results are so clearly held with pride by everyone involved in the creation. As Anu says, “It was a brilliant challenge, trying to flatten the hierarchy in those creative storytelling spaces.”
“There’s a real issue in the industry of recognition of labour and recognition of expertise,” Anu continues. “What I hope is that the film, alongside all the other conversations around the narrative and themes, will also spark a conversation about how creatives and how storytellers are credited in those spaces. I hope that, in the future, we can find ways to be even more accurate in the crediting, whether that means being credited as a collective or something like that.”
The outstanding central cast of young women in the film mostly consists of first-time actors: some came out of the work-shopping stage and others from open auditions. The actors established friendships with one another prior to filming and as a result have incredible on-screen chemistry. “We had done such a long period of workshops with the young women that we were working with that, by the time we got onto set, there was such familiarity and such trust between the creative team and the cast. The young women improvised a lot of the dialogue on set, and they really guided some of the scenes as well,” Anu tells me.
The unconventional making and casting of the film required a thoughtful and deliberate approach to hiring the crew. The creative team were keen to ensure that the young actors would be able to imagine themselves behind the camera as well as in front. “So there were choices that were made to ensure that the crew and the HODs [Heads of Department] were reflective of the women in the film.”
Who owns a story? Who has the right to tell a certain story? These are questions that creep up often with regards to projects that elevate experiences from marginalised communities. Gavron and Ward recognised early on that the only way to authentically tell a story about young women from East London is to invite that group to the storytelling table. “So much more can be gained from collaborative spaces, I think, in storytelling, because the value of bringing different people to the table, the value of hearing different voices is always going to add to a story rather than take away from it,” Anu adds.

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ROCKS by Sarah Gavron_image 3_ reduced

Most films do not show the world as it is and there are so many stories that still need to be told. Watching ROCKS was the first time that I really felt viscerally what representation can mean to a person, old or young – what it actually feels like to behold a character who looks like you or has lived a life like you. It is an inspiring and validating feeling.
Towards the end of our chat, I quickly ask Anu her thoughts on the recent announcement made by the Academy that filmmakers will have to meet a detailed inclusion and diversity guideline, starting 2024, in order for their work to be eligible for a Best Picture prize. “I’m a full believer that diversity is possibly the easiest thing you could do – the laziest thing you can do in some ways,” Anu comments. “If we’re talking about infrastructural change, diversity is the tip of the iceberg. It’s not the bulk of the problem by any means. If we’re really talking about how you change storytelling, how you change who’s represented in storytelling, how you change who is awarded for storytelling, right, you need to really unpack the whole infrastructure and not just need to have a certain number of Black and brown voices behind or in front of the camera.”
At the heart of ROCKS is a universal theme that will resonate with everyone: the power of friendship and hope. It is difficult not to root for these young people from the get-go. The unabashed displays of youth, the confidence, the happiness. ROCKS is a feat and a reminder that we’ll all be alright because the kids are alright. And the collaborative process behind its making sets a precedent for future filmmaking.
ROCKS is showing in select cinemas nationwide from 18 September 2020. Book your tickets <a href="https://rocks.film/">here</a>.
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<pre>Photo Credit: ROCKS by Sarah Gavron</pre>

ROCKS by Sarah Gavron_image 2

A radical approach to filmmaking by women creatives has produced an authentic and moving British film in which some Londoners will see themselves represented for the first time.

The Making of ROCKS: Radical, Collaborative Filmmaking

“Every decent director has only one subject, and finally only makes the same film over and over again. My subject is the exploitability of feelings, whoever might be the one exploiting them. It never ends. It’s a permanent theme. Whether the state exploits patriotism, or whether in a couple relationship, one partner destroys the other.”
So said Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the notorious and influential film director whose films brutally explored the moral ambiguities of post-war German society. Fassbinder&#8217;s brief but prolific 15-year spell of cinematic output still resonates today, and his mastery over the exploitability of feelings is an achievement not lost on Fyzal Boulifa, the British director of Lynn + Lucy, which is <a href="https://player.bfi.org.uk/subscription/film/watch-lynn-lucy-2019-online">now streaming on BFI Player</a>. In a recent Q&amp;A with the BFI, Boulifa answered questions in his home whilst perched in front of a poster of Fassbinder&#8217;s masterpiece, Ali: Fear Eats The Soul, and remarked that much like the cinema of the German auteur, his work is concerned with issues of &#8220;representation&#8221;. Fassbinder frequently challenged traditional forms of representation, playfully oscillating between brutal melodrama and comic irony to portray stories about people oppressed or exploited because of their race, class, sex and sexual orientation. As a contemporary director tackling questions of representation, Boulifa understands how cinema has the ability to challenge stereotypes and more honestly study both the beauty and ugliness of its characters. In turn, this forges a liminal space for the audience to ask questions of their own morality: how much of yourself do you see in these characters, and whose side are you on? It is this unflinching approach to representation that makes Lynn + Lucy one of the most fascinating British films of the year – a tragic and horrific tale of emotional exploitation – set against the backdrop of working-class life in Britain.
Set in Harlow, an Essex town located just outside Greater London&#8217;s tube line commuter boroughs, Lynn (brilliantly played by Roxanne Scrimshaw who was street cast via a local newspaper) and her best friend Lucy have been inseparable since school. However, Lynn&#8217;s disconnection from anything outside of motherhood or her close friendship with Lucy is made clear early on: upon starting her first job since school at a local hairdressing salon, she feels bullied by her colleagues and left out of the conversation. After Lucy is implicated in the cause of a tragic death, Lynn publicly condemns her best friend and begins to accrue social status as an arbiter of community safety, forming a kind of &#8216;neighbourhood watch&#8217; network that seeks to protect the group’s children and vilify Lucy in the process. Much like Fassbinder, Boulifa doesn&#8217;t shy away from on-screen discomfort, leaving the flaws, virtues and malicious intentions of all the characters clearly on display. Each shot is directed with precision, focusing on the lingering stares and covert whispers that emerge in the aftermath of the tragedy. As empathy and kindness begin to run in short supply, Boulifa creates a sense of relentless claustrophobia, using the proximity of the pair’s living situation to emphasise their widening emotional distance. Lynn holds a meeting in a local community centre to call for collective action against Lucy, and it&#8217;s easy to see the genesis of the group&#8217;s hatred – swap the physical space in front of the camera for daytime television call-in shows, online forums or the comment section of any online newspaper, and the story is much the same.
In recent years, working-class characters in British film and television have often been doomed to caricature or parody, or simply used as a proxy for whatever structural inequalities that the storyteller wants to highlight. In Lynn + Lucy, the &#8216;working-class-ness&#8217; of the film&#8217;s protagonists is accompanied by a more subtle approach, with the director taking care to keep the film&#8217;s colour palette bright and avoid ceding to lazy class stereotypes. What is clear though is that the characters of Lynn and Lucy live their lives in a society that has already set them up to fail, and the spectre of a deep-rooted viciousness lurks around every corner. Along the way we bump into a salon colleague who derides Lynn as &#8220;white trash&#8221; behind her back and an aspirational middle-class curtain-twitcher living down the road who remarks that &#8220;there are some people who should never reproduce&#8221;. This particular line is intended to shock, but it is hardly surprising for anyone who has grown up in the country where prime time television entertainment includes the class-baiting Can&#8217;t Pay We&#8217;ll Take It Away, Supernanny and Little Britain (a situation recently detailed in an excellent article by Jason Okundaye for <a href="https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/06/the-blair-show">The Tribune</a>).
Lynn + Lucy, in its brief 90-minutes of running time, succeeds in part because it does not make any obvious points about the background of the characters. At heart, it is a tragedy, primarily concerned with the elicitation of emotion rather than a straightforward, realist comment on the structural conditions the characters find themselves in. It is rare to see cinema directors make forays into the everyday stories of working people living in Britain today with the kind of fearlessness and playfulness that Fyzal Boulifa strives for his debut feature. Lynn + Lucy is a timely reminder that British cinema has a duty to better portray the complexity and diversity of narrative voices from low and lower-middle incomes – voices that neoliberalism and austerity have largely crowded out. We need representation to become one of the watchwords of the British filmmaking lexicon allowing for a more honest set of stories about, and from, people who grew up or who live in working-class Britain today. We need representations of happiness, sadness, grief, elation, success and failure; we need romance, drama, horror, comedy and everything in between. Perhaps then we can start reversing the damage of a media-complicit, decades-long misrepresentation of working-class life in Britain.
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<pre>Photo Credit: BFI / Lynn+Lucy</pre>

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An unflinching look at working-class Britain makes for one of the most fascinating films of the year.

The Ugly Beauty of Our Selves: A Review of Lynn + Lucy

* Contains mild spoilers
During a period of bleak uncertainty, where life as we know it is transforming into a kind of dystopian horror, Spanish director Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia does not seek to offer a comforting hand – but instead holds up a mirror to our society of greed. I am referring to his recent thriller The Platform, added to Netflix at the beginning of March this year, where Gaztelu-Urrutia delivers a sickening commentary on class structure and mankind’s insatiable appetite in this horror feast.
When our lead character, Goreng (Ivan Massagué) wakes up to find himself in a vertical prison of incalculable levels, he is horrified to discover the only form of nourishment is an extravagant banquet, travelling down the tower of two-person cells on a platform. The horror derives from the concept of equal distribution, seemingly non-existent within these concrete walls, as the prisoners on the upper levels indulge leaving the victims of the lower levels to starve. Goreng hopes to change the injustice that permeates the prison, but soon discovers that our selfish instincts are a lot harder to tame than he expected.
Gaztelu-Urrutia’s concept is a disturbing illustration of class structure for the senses and certainly entices audiences to question the morality of such practices. Its premise is, of course, bizarre and barbaric but also incredibly accurate. A fundamental flaw of the universal class system is its entitlement, mirrored perfectly by Gaztelu-Urrutia’s storytelling, as this prison’s occupants do not earn their place at the highest level but are merely placed there. Those at the top behave with hostility and have little respect for those below them, their gluttony draining the food from the platform and their contempt showering the remaining scraps with their own bodily fluids. This metaphor carries a horrifying depiction of a reality steeped in classism and unjust privilege.
Writers David Desola and Pedro Rivero make certain we understand the important messages which echo our current civilisation with their ‘matter of fact’ scriptwriting. The moral of the film is encapsulated entirely in one particular piece of dialogue when Goreng’s fellow inmate Imoguiri (Antonia San Juan) states, “if everybody ate only what they needed, the food would get to the lowest level.” This allegory is about as subtle as a brick through a window, and in fact arrives like a perfect accident, as the film was in development long before the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-food-bank-stockpile-panic-buying-donations-uk-cases-outbreak-a9393201.html">stockpiling</a> and <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-science-behind-behavior/202003/why-are-we-panic-buying-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic">panic buying</a> that hit the UK in March during the escalation of the coronavirus pandemic, illustrating that the world needs to listen to these lessons now more than ever.
The fact the themes of the film are in plain sight points to cinema’s freedom to address issues that many choose to turn a blind eye to. Although the script could have benefitted from more subtlety in order to encourage moral contemplation, The Platform’s lack of restraint holds our attention and lends itself perfectly to Netflix. Gaztelu-Urrutia uses this film as a soapbox at a time when society is fixed in its traditional class structure. Gaztelu-Urrutia excels in providing a clear and frank visualisation of our own selfishness. The nauseating visuals and stomach-turning sound design are enough to make audiences think twice about stockpiling food, as they will lose their appetite within the first five minutes of the film. This caricature of the survival instinct uncomfortably displays the type of class entitlement we see every day on the news.
The film’s messages aren’t the only thing lacking subtlety in this fever dream thriller. Gaztelu-Urrutia and his crew effectively convey anxiety and dread through a claustrophobic set design and invasive cinematography. One of the most striking attributes is the film’s dramatic lighting changes, where at times we are engulfed in a sea of red, reminiscent of the Italian Giallo horror which seeks to conjure feelings of unease and paranoia through its colour palette. The theme of decay is also made prevalent through other aesthetic choices, the many close-ups of food that feature throughout alluding to abandoned war zones and decomposing landscapes, illustrating the repercussions of our own self-interest. Even shots of life are muted with a dull hue, as a close-up of Goreng’s eye at the very beginning of the film hints at a loss of spirit in its lack of colour and depth. The Platform’s attention to detail achieves multiple atmospheres and spaces while being restricted to the same four walls. The cast, particularly Massagué and Zorion Eguileor, seem anything but trapped, as their performances are powerful and their chemistry palpable.
Without giving too much away, The Platform’s conclusion probably asks more questions than it answers. Although it gives audiences the freedom of interpretation it also seems a lacklustre ending to an intense narrative. No one could accuse the ending of being predictable, but it is not fully satisfying and left me feeling hungry for more. It seems Gaztelu-Urrutia sends a message that is not quite as bleak, hinting at a chance of redemption for humanity and providing a portal to a less hostile and selfish world, if only its citizens can find the key to unlock it.
The Platform perfectly utilises sensory horror and explicit gore to communicate its all too relevant messages. It projects an ugly side of humanity, leaving it to rot on screen, until it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. This is until the film’s conclusion where audiences are given the freedom to write their own ending. At such a desperate point in history, we need to see this film as a turning point for our attitudes towards class, privilege and entitlement, and remedy the problems they cause through mutual kindness and respect for one another, regardless of the level we find ourselves on.
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<pre>Photo Credit: The Platform film / Netflix</pre>

The Platform Film

Netflix horror 'The Platform' directed by Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia shows us the ugly face of class and capitalism.

The Platform Film: A Feast of Greed and Privilege

Expectations were high for the 70th edition of the Berlinale. This year’s anniversary edition coincided with the much-awaited debut of the new festival director duo Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian. The Berlinale was never a glamorous red carpet-oriented film festival. Yet, this year’s edition felt even more sombre than usual. There were no big Netflix productions. Though, contrary to what happened at Cannes in the last couple of years, this did not seem like a political decision. There were also hardly any big Hollywood stars or directors. Some losses come with gains, however: the level of the main competition line-up was consistently higher than in the last few years and included the kinds of gems one would expect from the curatorial talent of Chatran, who has gained the respect of the film festival community during his much-acclaimed seven-year stint as the artistic director of the <a href="https://www.the-platform.org.uk/tag/locarno/">Locarno Film Festival</a>.
One of the most remarkable films shown at this year’s Berlinale was <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11697690/">The Woman Who Ran</a>, a beautifully unassuming film by Korean director Hong Sang-Soo. Over the course of three days, a young woman called Gambhee visits three old female acquaintances. The women have not seen each other for a while. Gambhee compliments them on the furniture of the houses they have bought; they talk about the weather and their everyday routines. There is something deeper behind these deceptively simple, almost banal exchanges. “How can he be sincere, if he only repeats himself,” asks Gambhee about her friend’s novelist husband, who always says the same things in his frequent TV appearances.
The Woman Who Ran celebrates the value of unhurried, subdued exchanges between people who try to do their best to be kind to each other. These people are women and this seems to matter. All the encounters are interrupted by men who turn out to be quite unpleasant. One of them knocks on the door of the first house that Gambhee visits to complain about the stray cats that the women feed, explaining that his wife is scared of cats and that they should stop. The exchange is extremely courteous and yet the women stand their ground, asserting that cats are not less important than human beings and that they need food too, to the disbelief of the man who thinks humans should come first. The Woman Who Ran contains one of the best cat scenes in the history of cinema, but I will not say more so as not to spoil the fun! “I never start from any kind of generalisation about topics,” said Hong Sang-Soon during the post-screening press conference. It is a comment that might explain why this film seems so interested in the truths that lie in the small, unspectacular moments of our lives. This is not really a cinema of endurance, but a kind of cinema which is inviting us not to look for fireworks, because the fun – and the substance – may be just there, in the everyday scenarios that most of us already live.
A big favourite for the Golden Bear, Kelly Reichardt’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9231040/">First Cow</a> was unfairly snubbed at the awards ceremony. It is a real shame because this was the kind of film that, for its gentleness and modesty, would have been a very fitting winner of this year’s edition of the Berlinale. First Cow could be jokingly summarised as a film about two men in the Old West living together under the same roof, making scones. Cookie is a shy young man from Maryland, while King Lu is a savvy business-minded labourer from China who has travelled the world before reaching the Oregon Trail to seek his fortune. The two men team up to share a shack in a remote settlement. The outpost is sparsely populated by brutish rogues and a pretentious English man who acts as the colony’s chief. Cookie and King Lu are the kinds of men that the cinema of the old American frontier has rarely shown us. They are gentle and reserved men, a far cry from the kind of aggressive pioneer masculinity that we have come to know through cinema history. One of the most exquisite pleasures of this film comes from the candle-lit night scenes inside the shack, Cookie and King Lu quietly busy with their domestic chores and occasionally exchanging a few words like a couple of married pensioners. They could be lovers but there is no evidence of any romantic feelings between them, only kindness and mutually supportive comradeship. It feels as though, with this film, Reichardt wants to rewrite a foundational American story, inviting us to imagine an alternative genealogy of US masculinity, one based on cooperation and resourcefulness, rather than aggressive individualism and competitiveness
For me, the third and final highlight of this year’s Berlinale was <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8478554/">Hidden Away</a>, Giorgio Diritti’s magnificent biopic on Italian artist Antonio Ligabue. The narrative arc of the film is fairly conventional. It follows Ligabue’s life from his childhood in native Switzerland, where he was put into confinement due to his mental illness, to his mature years in northern Italy. An untrained sculptor and painter, Ligabue became one of the most influential Italian artists of the 20th century. Boasting an extraordinary performance by Elio Giordano in the role of Ligabue, Hidden Away does more than simply celebrate the genius of a great artist. The film makes viewers embrace the perspective of someone who was mistreated all his life for being different, even in the face of the great admiration that his work inspired. Firmly aligned with Ligabue’s subjective experience of the world, Hidden Away attempts to articulate his unframed perspective. Signalled by frequent subjective shots conveying a blurred peripheral vision, this perspective seems to express optically the special connectedness to the world that this artist developed through his art. It is a type of connectedness which at times strikes one as primitive and unhinged, and other times appears surprisingly full of wisdom and tenderness. Giordano’s highly physical performance combines feral abruptness and child-like vulnerability. Giordano is truly magnificent at embodying the loneliness and anguish experienced by Ligabue throughout this life. Yet, this is far from a tragic story. Hidden Away is a film about an irrepressible man who has fought all his life to assert his humanity and different way of being in the world against the bigotry surrounding him.
The Golden Bear for Best Film went to <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11697844/">There is No Evil</a> (Mohammad Rasoulof). The full list of awards can be viewed <a href="https://www.berlinale.de/en/festival/awards-and-juries/international-juy.html">here</a>.
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<pre>Photo Credit: Allyson Riggs via A24 Films (First Cow)</pre>

FIRST COW

With new festival curators, this year’s Berlinale showcased new and underrated film talent. Enjoy three selections below.