Son of Saul Review

Son of Saul, the best film I saw at Cannes 2015, is out in UK cinemas today. It's relentlessly grim, but an unforgettable watch. If you can find a cinema near you playing it over the next few months, I highly recommend it. It's not going to be as big as Captain America: Civil War, but it deserves your attention!

Here's a snippet from my review:

The gas chambers, the incinerators and the sickening machinery of genocide are all vividly dissected in Son of Saul as viewers are plunged into the midst of Hitler’s Final Solution at work. Audiences are dragged along on the gut wrenching journey of one man, a tiny cog in this machine of mass slaughter. For those who think they’ve seen all the horror that holocaust films can muster, Son of Saul scrapes new depths of despair in its harrowing depiction of the inner workings of Auschwitz in 1944.

We follow title character Saul, a Hungarian prisoner working as a member of the Sonderkommando at an Auschwitz crematorium. His job is to herd his fellow Jews to the gas chambers, where he then scrubs away the evidence of their deaths, before removing the bodies and plundering their belongings for the Nazis. But when the seemingly desensitised Saul finds the body of a boy he takes to be his son, he suddenly finds a way to grasp at some small sense of redemption in amongst all the senseless killing. He makes it his mission to save the boy’s corpse from cremation, and to find a rabbi who can recite the Kaddish prayer as he buries his child. Even as those around him plan rebellion in order to stand a chance at survival, Saul sticks rigidly to his plan to find a way to give the boy a proper burial.

You can check out the rest of my review at Tastic Film here.

Here's the trailer:



More from Cannes 2015

The Imitation Game Review

Benedict Cumberbatch is Alan Turing, a man intent on deciphering the enigma code used by the Germans in WW2. In playing Turing, Cumberbatch is the actor who has cracked the code for guaranteeing an Oscar nomination. Turing here is portrayed as being on the Autistic spectrum, finding it difficult to make friends, understand jokes or even be able to work as part of a team. He is a genius who seemed to only have one friend in his school days and then went on to work at Bletchley Park in order to figure out how the German’s were encoding all their radio communications during World War 2. The Imitation Game deals with his time at Bletchley most notably, but also flashes back to Turing’s days being bullied at school and forward to after the war where he was eventually arrested for being a homosexual.

The Imitation Game is a fascinating study of a man, who is leagues ahead of most he encounters in terms of intelligence, but struggles with personal relationships. More than that though, it is a gripping thriller that looks behind the bombings and battles of WW2 and instead investigates the men (and at least one woman) behind the curtain at Bletchley Park. These codebreakers were ultimately responsible for significantly impacting the length of the war, and also saving millions of lives. Despite not having a clue how their machines work, or what incredible calculations they are making, The Imitation Game remains riveting throughout. By mixing up the chronology, director Morten Tyldum makes what could have been another boring biopic into something more engaging and inevitably tragic.

This is definitely Cumberbatch’s show, but more than just one noteworthy performance, The Imitation Game dabbles briefly but memorably into the moral quandaries of war time decision making and the abhorrent treatment of homosexuals in post-war Britain. It is a testament to  the genius of Turing, but also a tragic reminder that the country he worked for turned its back on him.

Watch the trailer:

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Unbroken

Unbroken Review

The incredible true story of Olympian runner, plane crash and Japanese prison camp survivor Louis Zamperini is vividly retold by director Angelina Jolie, starring the massive young British talent and star in the making Jack O'Connell. Starting in World War 2, as Zamperini is faced with his first hairy experience dropping out of the sky in a damaged plane, the screenplay worked on by the Coen brothers then flashes back to Zamperini's troubled childhood in America as the bullied son of Italian immigrants. After his brother encourages him to take up running, Zamperini soon starts to excel at the sport, leaving his criminal behaviour behind. His running takes him all the way to the Berlin Olympics but it is his war stories that really show the unbreakable spirit of this remarkable survivor.

Surviving a second plane crash but this time being lost at sea for 47 days with two other men, Zamperini floats through starvation and shark infested waters until he is eventually picked up by the Japanese and put into prison under the sadistic guard known as The Bird. Unbroken is undoubtedly a hell of a story but somehow it never manages to fulfil its emotive potential. Jack O’Connell is outstanding in the lead but special mention should go to Domhnall Gleeson for offering fine support and a physical transformation that will make you wonder to what extremes the actor went to in order to achieve his starved appearance.

Ultimately, Unbroken dwells a little too much on the torture and sadism of The Bird, becoming a little repetitive and drawn out in its prison set scenes, where instead more could have been done to build Zamperini’s character in his earlier, formative years. Far from a broken mess, Unbroken just needed a little fixing to do its amazing story the justice it deserved.

Watch the trailer:

 

More Reviews at I Love That Film

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London Film Festival 2014

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BFI London Film Festival to close with Fury

What could be more exciting than The Imitation Game opening the BFI London Film Festival? Well apart from the prospect of most of London coming to a standstill and getting all quivery at the knees over Benedict Cumberbatch, it is the closing night film that has really got my motor running. The European Premiere of Fury from director David Ayer is rolling into Leicester Square on Sunday 19 October and promises to close the LFF with a spectacular bang.

As far as I’m concerned, Ayer hit a pretty major stumbling block with his last film Sabotage but before that he had written and directed one of my top 3 films of 2012, End of Watch. That film had also been screened at the London Film Festival and was an intense ride around the badass streets of LA with two cops in the thick of cartels and drug dealers. Swapping the cop car for a tank, Fury takes us back to World War 2, a subject Ayer hasn’t written about since U-571. 

Starring one of the most exciting casts of the year, Fury sees Brad Pitt, (a post-meltdown) Shia LaBeouf, Michael Peña, Jon Bernthal and Logan Lerman rolling around in a Sherman tank behind enemy lines in 1945 as the war is drawing to a close. I can’t say much for little Logan Lerman yet but the rest of that cast promise big things for this film. If Ayer can capture the horror of fighting in World War 2 as well as he captured the danger of being a cop on the streets of LA, Fury will be a belting way to close this year’s BFI London Film Festival. 

No doubt Pitt, Ayer and hopefully more of the stars of the film will attend the premiere and get their snaps taken on the red carpet while delighting fans with their smiles and regaling journalists with tales of not washing and living like soldiers while working in English fields on the film. If you can’t get to the London premiere, there will be simultaneous screenings in various cinemas across the country. 

Here is a snippet about the film from the BFI LFF website:
 
‘In Fury, it is April, 1945. As the Allies make their final push in the European Theatre, a battle-hardened army sergeant named Wardaddy (Brad Pitt) commands a Sherman tank and her five-man crew on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. Outnumbered and outgunned, and with a rookie soldier thrust into their platoon, Wardaddy and his men face overwhelming odds in their heroic attempts to strike at the heart of Nazi Germany.’

Festival Director Clare Stewart calls Fury a ‘resounding cinematic achievement. Rarely is a film so successful at balancing the human drama of war with such thrilling action sequences’. David Ayer says ‘It’s a true pleasure to be returning to England, where we shot the film – the fields of Oxfordshire and Bovingdon Airfield in Hertfordshire were our home for 12 weeks last year, so it’s something of a homecoming for us to present the movie at its European premiere’. 

Fury will be released across the UK on 24 October 2014. The 58th BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express runs from Wednesday 8 October to Sunday 19 October. The full programme for the Festival will be announced on Wednesday 3 September and tickets for public booking will open on 18 September. 

Here is the trailer:

More on The BFI London Film Festival 2014.

BFI London Film Festival 2014 to open with The Imitation Game

Benedict Cumberbatch gets his stiff upper lip right out in the recent trailer for The Imitation Game, the latest film from Morten Tyldum, the director of the bonkers Jo Nesbo adaptation Headhunters. The Imitation Game has been chosen as the film to open the 2014 London Film Festival which, judging by this trailer, is a fairly exciting prospect indeed.

The films is ‘a dramatic portrayal of the life and work of Alan Turing, one of Britain’s most extraordinary unsung heroes, and one of the world’s greatest innovators’. There are a lot of very serious and stern faces in the trailer. Mark Strong warns of the possibility of execution, Matthew Goode looks on a bit baffled, and then Keira Knightley pops up with an accent so posh, it manages to make even Cumberbatch’s own tones sound positively common. Not enough famous faces for you? Well that bastard Tywin Lanister (Charles Dance) has recovered from his crossbow through the gut, enough to scowl his way through the trailer as well.

Here is a snippet from the London Film Festival website about the film:

 ‘The pioneer of modern-day computing, Turing is credited with cracking the German Enigma code and the film is a nail-biting race against time by Turing and his brilliant team at Britain’s top-secret code-breaking centre, Bletchley Park, during the darkest days of World War II. Turing, whose contributions and genius significantly shortened the war, saving thousands of lives, was the eventual victim of an unenlightened British establishment, but his work and legacy live on.’

Alan Turing is positioned as an outsider, genius and an enigma and it’s at this point that you have to ask with all this talk of war, breaking codes and Bletchley Park shenanigans, um wait a minute... didn’t Kate Winslet and Dougray Scott cover all this already in Enigma? Hopefully not...

And what’s with the obsession with war at the London Film Festival this year? With Fury closing the Festival, the films announced so far definitely have the scent of death and glory very much in their nostrils. 

The premiere will be at the Odeon Leicester Square on Wednesday 8th October and no doubt there will plenty of stars on the red carpet flashing their gorgeous gnashers, even as the paparazzi flash back at them with their cameras. Cumberbitches/Cumberpeople (whatever they’re called) better get their life size cardboard cut outs/posters/Sherlock dolls at the ready because he’s sure to be smouldering. For the fellas, um Keira Knightley will be pouting her way along the red carpet before somebody hopefully gets her a giant bag of popcorn to enjoy during the movie.

BFI LFF director Clare Stewart says: 

‘We are thrilled to announce one of the most anticipated films of the year – The Imitation Game – as this year’s BFI London Film Festival Opening Night gala. Featuring extraordinary performances from the British talent in front of the camera and vividly directed by Morten Tyldum, The Imitation Game does cinematic justice to Alan Turing’s vision, determination and personal story as well as his enduring impact on British history and contemporary life.’

Director Morten Tyldum says:
 ‘I am thrilled to be returning to London to share The Imitation Game with the audience of the BFI London Film Festival. The experience of directing this film has been so tremendously rewarding, and I am humbled to share Alan Turing’s incredible story on Opening Night.’

If you can’t get to the opening night gala, or any of the cinemas around the country that will screen the film simultaneously, then The Imitation Game opens in UK cinemas on 14 November, 2014. The full programme will be announced on Wednesday 3 September and public booking opens on 18 September.

Here is the trailer:



More on the BFI London Film Festival 2014