The 63Rd Edinburgh International Film Festival

The 63rd Edinburgh International Film Festival

Despite celebrating its 63rd birthday with a examples of British miserablism ( A Boy coming to the end of his 3-year contract stupendously underwhelming Opening Called Dad, Running In Traffic ), most of this and looking forward to getting back to his Night film (Sam Mendes’ Away We Go ), the year’s crop of British films were surprisingly wife and daughter, his sole companion a Edinburgh International Film Festival isn’t satisfying. Mad, Sad & Bad with its neurotic robot called GERTY (voiced by Kevin ready for retirement yet. Allegedly a family in meltdown felt like a British-Asian Spacey). But after crashing his moon comedy, Away We Go is yet another shoe- version of a Woody Allen film. Except that buggy, Sam starts to doubt his own sanity gazing mope through the lives of a couple unlike Woody’s recent output, it was mildly when he finds his base invaded by a of middle-class, thirty-something slackers amusing. Lindy Heymann’s KICKS , stranger. A stranger named Sam. A stranger and the existential crisis they face as they however, was anything but, playing more who looks exactly like him. And just how try to get to grips with adulthood and figure like a Merseyside-version of Misery . Scary trustworthy is GERTY? Rockwell is a out the best place to settle down and and compassionate, KICKS skillfully revelation as Sam, playing two very spawn. Directed on autopilot by Sam dissects Britain’s obsession with celebrity different sides of the same character, and Mendes, Away We Go is the type of laid- culture as its two teenage wannabee WAGs Kevin Spacey makes GERTY a charming back, unfunny, comedy mumbleathon (Kerrie Hayes and Nichola Burley) kidnap and slightly sinister presence, both caring normally made by earnest young indie the object of their affections, swaggering and menacing, an echo of 2001’s HAL directors and starring earnest, young indie footballer Lee (Jamie Doyle), in an attempt 9000. Brilliantly directed by the artist actors with names like Zooey. Full of the to stop his transfer to another team. Dark formerly known as Zowie Bowie (David kind of loveably eccentric kooks you’d and edgy, KICKS explores the hollow Bowie’s sickeningly talented son Duncan cheerfully garrotte if they existed anywhere ambitions of the Heat -generation without Jones) on an ultra-low budget of $5 million, outside of smug, self-satisfied films like ever demonising it’s teen protagonists. Moon is both a fascinating study of this, Away We Go is like being stuck at a Andrea Arnold’s eagerly awaited Fish paranoid loneliness and a thrilling vision of dinner party full of Guardian columnists. Tank , while a little too long and somewhat the near-future which stays with you long And not the fun ones like Charlie Brooker. predictable, was far more satisfying than after you’ve left the cinema. No, we’re talking about the whiny, spoilt her excellent, if chilly, debut Red Road . As ever at Edinburgh some of the most ones like Lucy Mangan. Hopefully at some Ostensibly a coming of age tale, Fish Tank enjoyable films were part of the Night point in the future, some genius will decide feels more like a chav retelling of Lolita as Moves strand; late night genre movies to to programme Away We Go as one half of a tough, abrasive, 15 going on 35-year old see you through the midnight hour. Tense double bill with Sam’s recent laugh-fest Mia (Katie Jarvis) dreams of escaping her and claustrophobic, first-time director Revolutionary Road . dysfunctional family and no-hope housing Stuart Hazeldine’s Exam is an ambitious Far funnier was Justin Molotnikov’s dark, estate through her talents as a dancer. little shocker. Unfolding in real time, Exam ’s little Scottish film Crying With Laughter . Slowly she becomes enamoured of her killer premise take’s a disparate group of Equal parts black comedy and Cape Fear - trashy mother’s too-attentive new boyfriend strangers, puts them in a sealed room with style revenge thriller, Crying With Laughter (Michael Fassbender) and I’m not letting an armed guard, a scary invigilator (Colin charts the worst week in Edinburgh stand- any cats out of bags by revealing it all ends Salmon) and some simple rules: leave the up comic Joey Frisk’s (Stephen McCole) life in tears. Far from downbeat, Fish Tank is an room and you’re disqualified, talk to the as a chance meeting with old school friend affecting, entertaining film about life on the guard and you’re disqualified, spoil your Frank (Malcolm Shields) leads to him being margins, featuring fantastic performances paper and you’re disqualified. However, made homeless, framed for attempted from first-time actress Katie Jarvis, the when the invigilator instructs them to murder, and involved in a kidnapping as old ever-dependable Fassbender and a scene- begin, the candidates turn over their scores are settled and the guilty are stealing turn by Rebecca Griffiths as Mia’s papers to reveal a blank sheet without a punished. Scots actor Stephen McCole is potty-mouthed little sister. question. As the candidates turn on each fantastic as the put-upon comic and his The best of this year’s crop of British other and descend into mind-games and performance is hilariously un-PC and subtly films however was the excellent Moon . A desperate violence the audience quickly vulnerable with Shields a sympathetic, if tight little sci-fi thriller more interested in the realises that there’s more at stake than just relentless, villain and the final revelation, psychological effects of isolation than in a job and that survival itself may just be the while signposted far in advance is, explosions and wham bam action, Moon reward. I’d watch The Apprentice if it was nonetheless, affecting and goes some way features fantastic performances from Sam anything like this. Salvage , with its to explaining Frisk’s angry, misanthropic Rockwell and, well, Sam Rockwell. suburban street violently quarantined by stage persona. Rockwell plays Sam, a lonely miner the army and secret military project gone While there were the usual honourable stationed on an isolated moonbase who’s awry borrowed heavily from George

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Romero and offered some mechanically announces ‘Chaos reigns,’ and the and the soldier is a brittle young woman, effective scares right up until it revealed its increasingly unhinged Gainsbourg starts haunted by her experiences. Stephen monstrous antagonist at which point logic raiding the tools in the woodshed … Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience is a and tension went out the window. Also Overblown and hysterical, with scenes of chilly episodic character study of a young borrowing from Romero, Canadian director genital mutilation and violence that New York escort girl (a standout Bruce McDonald’s Pontypool is a sly wouldn’t be out of place in an Eli Roth performance by porn starlet Sasha Grey). Francophile reinvention of the zombie movie, Antichrist is torture porn Against a backdrop of the recent financial movie. When a deadly virus turns the masquerading as a serious movie which meltdown we follow Grey as she shops, respectable citizens of Ontario town ultimately fails because you just don’t care dines, spends time with her clients, worries Pontypool into a mob of violent about the characters. You get the about a rival stealing her business and is psychopaths it’s up to talk radio host Grant impression that Gainsbourg’s character interviewed by a journalist. All the while, the Mazzy (Stephen McHattie) to try to save was already as nutty as a cashew tree main topic, the only topic, of everyone’s the day from the relative safety of his DJ before her son’s death and Dafoe’s smug conversation is how bad the markets are booth. cognitive therapist richly deserves the two- doing. It’s obvious that Soderbergh’s This year’s clutch of international films by-four to the balls he receives. heavy-handed point is that Grey’s clients were as diverse and eclectic as one’s come Based on the life of legendary French aren’t the only ones being screwed. to expect of Edinburgh and while the last bank robber Jacques Mesrine, Jean- Disappointingly, for a film about sex, The minute inclusion of Lars Von Trier’s Francois Richet’s double bill Mesrine: Girlfriend Experience is damn unsexy. controversial Antichrist smacked of L’instinct de mort (Killer Instinct) and If you’re looking for sexy though, look no audience baiting, it fit well in a programme Mesrine: L’ennemi public n o1 (Public Enemy further than Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt that served up a satisfying mix of crowd No1) is a ferocious, adrenalin-fuelled ride Locker ; an adrenaline shot straight to the pleasers and the elegantly uncomfortable. through a criminal career that if it wasn’t senses that makes war, and in particular, Essentially a two-hander, the grieving true no one would believe it. Featuring a bomb disposal look damn sexy. From the couple (Willem Dafoe and Charlotte charismatic, seductive performance from intricate opening sequence where a US Gainsbourg) at the heart of Antichrist retreat Vincent Cassel as Mesrine, the best way to Army bomb disposal team’s leader is to an isolated cabin in the woods to get enjoy these films is back to back. Aussie killed, the film grabs you by the throat and over the death of their infant son. Which director Rowan Woods’ Fragments is a doesn’t let go. Focusing on the team’s mostly involves Gainsbourg demanding Short Cuts -style ensemble piece THAT replacement chief, an excellent Jeremy violent sex and masturbating joylessly in follows the survivors of a mass shooting in Renner, an adrenaline-junkie who’s only the woods while she slowly dissolves into an American diner while Denmark’s Little alive when he faces death, and his madness. Lushly shot by Anthony Dod Soldier recycles the plot of Mona Lisa with relationship with the rest of his team (the Mantle, the first two thirds of the film are a Gulf veteran returning to Copenhagen cautious, seasoned veteran Anthony unnerving and claustrophobic, its vision of and slipping into a job chauffeuring a Mackie and the fatalistic rookie Brian a hostile Nature a palpable third character Nigerian call girl around for a jovial pimp. Geraghty), The Hurt Locker is more in the film. Then a talking fox turns up, The pimp however is the soldier’s father interested in putting you in the shoes of men at war, examining their motivations The Hurt Locker, directed by Kathryn Bigalow. and mindsets, rather than action set- pieces, CG effects or political grandstanding. Which isn’t to say that the action scenes aren’t stunning. Covering the last 30 days of the team’s tour of duty in Iraq, The Hurt Locker is a bruising experience, as viscerally thrilling and visually exciting as Bigelow’s previous films Point Break and Strange Days . Perhaps the first truly important film to come out of Gulf War Part 2, The Hurt 8

0 Locker is a film that doesn’t offer easy 0 2 answers or a pat resolution but it is a tense, C L L

, thrilling ride. With films like Moon and the t n e excellent Crying With Laughter, the m n i a prognosis for next year’s festival is pretty t r e t healthy. n E t i m m David Watson u S

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