A taste of brilliant cinema

A bit of catch-up cinema today, with a first viewing of A Taste of Honey, the 1961 film from director Tony Richardson from Shelagh Delaney’s 1958 play of the same name, which they jointly adapted.

An iconic piece of British New Wave – often described as kitchen sink drama – it opens as 17-year-old Jo is nearing the end of her time in school, desperate to escape both that and her self-absorbed, good-time mother Helen.

But even in her last few days at school, her mother hasn’t paid the rent, so the pair have to make a dash from their grubby lodgings to escape – not for the first time.

On the way to somewhere new to stay, Jo is helped with heavy suitcases by a young black man, Jimmy. Later, walking alongside the Manchester Ship Canal – she meets him again. He’s a cook on a ship that’s temporarily docked there. They begin a brief courtship.

Meanwhile, Helen has hooked up with a new boyfriend, Peter – clearly quite successful financially, but also rather seedy – who wants to make “an honest woman” of her. When a ‘family’ weekend trip to Blackpool goes wrong, Jo heads back to Manchester alone and bumps into Jimmy. They make love.

The inevitable happens, but she is supported by Geoffrey, a gay textile student, who moves into her grubby digs, does things up and generally looks after her.

However, Helen isn’t happy about that.

This is a very good film. From a personal perspective, it’s set in a part of the country I know – even if only some years later than the film was made – and has a resonance on that level.

It’s unflinching in terms of its approach to the post-war state of the country – children play on bomb sites and Jo is, more than once, disgusted to see children who are clearly not being looked after properly (a reflection of her own experience of growing up).

It’s not simplistic, though, never making the mistake of not understanding why we reach for moments of happiness, even if those can ultimately be costly.

The cast is uniformly excellent. Dora Bryan as Helen makes a mockery of any idea that she was ever ‘only’ a light comic actor. Robert Stephens is subtle in the role of the unpleasant, sexist Peter.

Both Paul Danquah as Jimmy and Murray Melvin as Geoffrey turn in nuanced performances that never fall into the trap of cliché.

To add, John Addison’s music is very effective – predominantly with the use of children singing, which reminds us of how young Jo in particular is.

Very much worth a watch.

Would you be a friend of Dorothy?

A hugely hygge weekend offered the opportunity for loads of reading. Having finished Bernadine Evaristo’s fabulous Mr Loverman on Saturday afternoon, I dived straight in to Sandi Toksvig’s new novel, Friends of Dorothy.

Police officer Stevie and paramedic Amber are not long married and they believe they’ve found the perfect home at 4 Grimaldi Square in London – albeit the square is generally rather run-down and with a nosy neighbour who’s shocked to discover she’s now living next door to married lesbians, and a nearly dead pub on one corner.

But when they go to move in, they find that Dorothy, the 80-year-old, foul-mouthed, straight-talking, wise-cracking woman they had bought the house from – has decided that she’s not moving out.

What follows draws in more local characters and develops into a sort of ‘caper’ book. I’ve heard the phrase ‘caper film’ more than once, but this really is the first time I can recall thinking of a book as a ‘caper book’. But I can’t think of it as anything else, given some of the scenes – and one late scene in particular.

Yet don’t let that con you. It is also remarkably subtle too. Toksvig uses her story to touch on class, race – and, of course, LGBTQ – issues, without being heavy-handed about it.

There are a number of interweaving stories here, all of which Toksvig uses to illustrate her central premise of “logical, not biological” families. The old saying is that ‘you can choose your friends but not your family’, yet some in the LGBT+ community are challenging that idea and what constitutes your family and how you organise/deal with such relationships.

It might sound ‘light’ – and it is, in many ways – but Toksvig is a really skilled storyteller and that’s why it never feels like you’re being lectured to. As a tiny example, while she never says whether Grimaldi Square is in north, south, east or west London, it felt so recognisable to me that I had a sense of ‘knowing’ that it was not far from where I live in east London.

It’s a funny story, but with real, real heart. A lovely, humane read. I got through its 350 pages in less than 24 hours, which should tell you something.

Kaos reigns – and long may it do so!

‘The all-powerful yet insecure god Zeus starts to fear his end of reign when he spots a wrinkle on his forehead. He becomes increasingly paranoid and vindictive toward his followers.

At the same time, three humans start to discover their connections with each other and grand conspiracies involving the residents of Mount Olympus.’

 

That’s a version of the precis from Wikipedia of the eight-part Netflix series Kaos.

 

It’s a black comedy from British writer Charlie Covell that takes the myths and puts them in a modern setting. It’s brilliantly realised, with an excellent script, great design and a superb use of music.

 

I’d always found the Greek/Roman myths un-interesting – until reading Colm Tóibín’s House of Names, a very serious re-working of the myths of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, which I hugely appreciated (I read it because I hugely appreciate Tóibín’s work). This is helping me enjoy the myths even more. Funnily enough, I bought Tony, my late partner, a signed copy of Stephen Fry’s Mythos a few years ago and might well read that now.

 

And then there’s the cast. Jeff Goldblum is an absolute hoot as Zeus – staying JUST the right side of completely OTT. But there’s also the fabulous Janet McTeer as his wife Hera, Aurora Perrineau as Eurydice, David Thewlis as Hades, Rakie Ayola as Persephone, Nabhaan Rizwan as Dionysis, Stephen Dillane as Prometheus (who gets to do a lot of breaking the fourth wall, brilliantly well), Misia Butler as Caeneus and Suzy/Eddie Izzard as Lachy, one of The Fates. And that’s just to mention a few of a superb ensemble!

 

I love the diversity of it – and I have spent time Googling various characters to see how accurate these new versions are. So for instance, in the series, Caeneus is a trans man. I looked it up – and yes, born Caenis, they were transformed by “Poseidon into an invulnerable man”.

 

I mostly watch films and sport on TV and rarely get excited over anything else (Picard season 3 last year was the last time), but this has just blown me away. It’s absolutely set up for a second season (though still awaiting Netflix announcement on that) but this was/is brilliant fun and I will be watching again!

The Man with the Answers is utterly charming

The Man with the Answers is writer and director Stelios Kammitsis’s quirky and charming 2021 film that combines being a gay romantic drama with a beautifully photographed road movie.

It opens in Greece, where Viktorias, a former champion diver, is now working in a furniture factory. His mother left Greece some years before to go and live with her new partner in Bavaria and, when her mother dies, she doesn’t bother to either return for or contribute to the funeral, leaving Viktorias to sell his diving medals to pay for the send-off for his beloved grandmother.
 
Grieving and depressed, he decides to take his mother’s abandoned Audi and drive to Germany to visit. On the ferry from Greece to Italy, he encounters Mathias, an eccentric German student who persuades Viktorias to let him join the trip – and from there, to guide him away from the motorways and into a more scenic route as they head north, in what becomes a much more enlightening trip.
 
It's a gentle film that uses its 80 minutes to delicately plot the development of the relationship between the two men, which is often fraught – and perhaps particularly the development of trust.
 
Vasilis Magouliotis and Anton Weil as Viktorias and Mathias respectively are thoroughly engaging and convincing. Stella Fyrogeni as Angeliki, Viktorias’s mother, gives a nice performance in the late stages of the film.
 
Antonis Kataris as the funeral director is worth a mention as for being quite effectively creepy at seeing the death as a way of mounting up the profit.

And Thodoros Mihopoulos’s cinematography is excellent.
Really enjoyable – and currently streaming on Sky.

Parallel – using sci-fi for a powerful take on grief

Described generally as a ‘science fiction thriller’, this year’s Parallel – a remake of the 2019 Chinese film Parallel Forest, and re-written by brothers Aldis and Edwin Hodge, together with Jonathon Keasey – is a seriously good film that seems to have picked up less attention than it should have when it appeared in UK cinemas earlier this year.

I was looking for something to watch this evening after work and noticed that it is currently available on Sky. My memory was jogged to remembering a trailer seen on cinema visits earlier this year. That trailer doesn't do it justice.

 

Vanessa is mourning the loss of her and her husband Alex’s son, Obi, who died a year previously in a car crash that was not the fault of either of them, though she seems confused over who was driving at the time.

 

They live in a very nice home, with Martel, Alex’s brother, effectively surrounded by forest and with a nearby lake and increasingly strange things start to happen. The men’s father had apparently thought the area ‘strange’, yet the film opens with only Vanessa seeming to experience such.

 

Although the couple have had counselling, she is withdrawing further and further from life. And then she finds herself facing herself in the forest, in a parallel universe.

 

It’s subtle and low-key for cinema sci-fi these days. In some ways very simply told, with no (discernible) special effects – and kudos to director Kourosh Ahari for that. But while it’s ‘sci-fi’, its core themes are loss, grief, and trauma, and they are very well and sensitively dealt with.

 

Very good cinematography from Pip White, and an equally good soundtrack from Josh Atchley and Denise Santos.

 

It is a three-hander, and the Hodge brothers play both the male roles (very well). But much here relies on Vanessa, and Danielle Deadwyler is excellent in the role, really catching the complexity of the emotional experience of loss, grief and guilt.

And the ending packs a surprising punch.

As I said – it's on Sky now and very much worth watching.

The Red Turtle – a confusing piece of fine animation

I was made aware of The Red Turtle, Michaël Dudok de Wit’s 2016’s award-winning animation co-production with Studio Ghibli and others, when binge watching Mark Kermode and Steve Mayo’s YouTube film reviews last week.

The general tone was one of a rave – and I instantly put it on my ‘must see’ list.

A man is washed up on an uninhabited island. He makes three attempts to escape on hand-built rafts, but at every turn, is thwarted by a giant turtle.

After the third attempt, he seeks revenge on the turtle, with unexpected results.

Well. I’ve seen it now and I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, it’s beautifully animated, but it took me two thirds in to it to really have a ‘feel’ for this fairytale. And that is what it is – a fairytale.

There are many things that work: as said, the animation itself is beautiful; 2D and 3D complimenting each other perfectly. The score from Laurent Perez del Mar is very good. It is essentially a non-verbal film, so no voice talent required.

Is it an eco-film, for instance? Not entirely sure.

I may have to watch it again, because I’m really not quite sure what to make of it, and yet ...

Kensuke's Kingdom is pitch-perfect film-making

Initially premiered at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June 2023, before being seen at last October’s BFI London Film Festival, this film based on Michael Morpurgo’s children’s book – originally published in 1999 – has now made its way to a more general release.

It tells the story of Michael, an 11-year-old boy, who sets off with his parents and older sister on a sailing trip around the world, after Mum and Dad both lose their jobs.

But Michael is less than happy – not least as his beloved sheepdog, Stella, has had to stay at home, or so we are initially led to believe.

One night, as a storm rages, Michael and Stella are washed overboard, only to wake on an apparently uninhabited desert island.

However, they find help – albeit reluctantly – from Kensuke, an elderly Japanese man who was washed up on the island decades before. Gradually their relationship evolves, as Michael learns to respect and value the environment he finds himself in, together with its wildlife, which Kensuke helps to protect. And as we discover, there are varied reasons it needs protection.

It's an excellent screenplay by Frank Cottrell-Boyce, who has changed aspects of the original novel, but which certainly make sense here. For instance, in the book, the two central protagonists learn to speak each other’s language. Here, they learn only each other’s name, with communication being based more on emotion and expression.

There is also a love of art that they share and helped them learn about each other.

And their art allows the animators to be incredibly creative, from Michael’s log-book drawings coming to life on an origami boat that moves around a map of the world, to an extraordinary sequence of Japanese-inspired ink works that give the audience an insight into Kensuke’s own past.

The animation is superb – hand-drawn and combining 2D and 3D styles, which hark back to early Disney: think the 1937 Snow White and Bambi, both with lush painted backgrounds and 2D characters. As touched on above, here, there is a melding of different approaches throughout and including some simply beautiful vistas.

Directed by Neil Boyle and Kirk Hendry and with a super score by Stuart Hancock, it comes in at a very pleasingly trim 85 minutes.

In terms of the voice cast, Sally Hawkins is Mum, Cillian Murphy is Dad, and Raffey Cassidy is Becky, Michael’s sister.

But the film rests firmly with Michael and Kensuke, and Aaron MacGregor and Ken Watanabe get it absolutely nailed on.

Kensuke’s Kingdom is a beautiful film – both to look at and in terms of its humanity, compassion, exploration of what family/community means, and its advocacy for the natural world.

Very, very much worth seeing.