BFI LFF 2011 Top 5

After two-and-a-half weeks of cinema heaven, he 55th BFI London Film Festival came to a close this past Thursday with the UK premiere of Terence Davies' The Deep Blue Sea. It also marked the final LFF for Sandra Hebron, who steps down as the festival's Artistic Director after nine successful years at the healm, to be replaced by Clare Stewart, an Australian who ran the Sydney Film Festival for five years. To commemorate this changing of the guard, here's our  roundup of the best (and worst) films to have screened at LFF this year. We're already looking forward to 2012!

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Target ★☆☆☆☆

"overly-complicated, hideously long and mind numbingly incoherent"

Russian cinema has a long and rich history of producing exceptional sci-fi movies. From the pioneering silent films of  Protazanov and Zhuravlyov, to the deeply philosophical films of Tarkovsky and Lopishansky, Russia has always used this speculative science based genre to comment on social issues rather than merely forms of escapism. Alexander Zeldovich's Target (Mishen, 2011) attempts to continue this tradition with his heavily stylised and hugely ambitious disquisition of greed, mortality and natural human behaviour.

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Children Who Chase Lost Voices From Deep Below ★★★★☆

"any single frame could easily be removed and held-up as an accomplished piece of art"

Director Makoto Shinkai's previous effort 5 Centimetres Per Second (2007) is one of the most beautiful animes to ever grace the screen. Its tale of unrequited love told across three stages created a story more emotionally devastating than even the most assured romantic film. Children Who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below (2011) is a far more conventional anime film, recalling the fantasy and wonder of Studio Ghibli, yet still retains the same artistic flare which marked Shinkai as one of anime's most promising directors.

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We Have a Pope ★★★☆☆

"...a hugely enjoyable experience that’s sadly let down by a rather lacklustre and uninspiring ending..."

We Have a Pope is Nanni Moretti’s follow up to The Cayman – his cinematic attack on Berlusconi. Whilst a deeply satirical examination of the Catholic Church, We Have a Pope is also a warm and gentle comedy about human frailty and the misguided attempts we make to alter our own fate.

A new Pope is to be elected and hordes of devout believers have flocked to the Vatican, waiting in anticipation to see the smoke from the chimney of the concave turn from black to white. Inside we join the selected few who have been chosen as potential candidates. Each seems anxious over the impending vote, however, it’s not due to an inherent desire to be chosen but rather the fear that they might be. The responsibility of leading well over a billion followers has each of them petrified, a sentiment echoed by Moretti’s decision to allow us to pry into their prayers, where a cavalcade of apprehensive voices plead not to be chosen.

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The Great Bear ★★★☆☆

" a genuinely sweet and moving story"

Danish cinema has enjoyed a remarkable resurgence of late, with Susanne Bier's Academy Award winner In a Better World (2010) and the consistently provocative work of Lars von Trier. However, Denmark is a country that has so far never been famed for its animation output - something Esben Toft Jacobsen is looking to amend with The Great Bear (2011).

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Faust ★★★★☆

"a thoroughly entertaining investigation into the existence of the soul and its uses"

Acclaimed Russian director Alexander Sokurov looks set to divide audiences at this year's 55th BFI London Film Festival with his deeply profound, Venice Golden Lion-winning variation on Goethe's tragedy Faust (2011) - an unique and transcendental adaptation, with all the characteristic flare and style we've come to expect from this pioneering director.

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Footnote ★★★☆☆

"there remains much to love from this gloriously enjoyable film"

Following his Oscar-nominated, deeply moving anti-war film Beaufort (2007), director Joseph Cedar continues to raise his profile with Footnote (2011), a uniquely comedic exploration into issues of pride, sacrifice and jealousy through a fragile family dynamic which won him the prestigious best screenplay award at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.

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Old Dog ★★★★☆

"what it lacks in funding it more than makes up for in sentiment"

Director Pema Tseden has almost single-handedly reinvented Tibetan cinema. His previous two films, The Silent Holy Stones (2005) and The Search (2009), both screened at the Vancouver International Film Festival to great critical acclaim. Like his previous efforts, Old Dog (2011) is set in the Tibetan region of the Chinese province of Qinghai, however, his latest venture is yet to receive approval from the Chinese film bureau to be released locally - making its BFI London Film Festival appearance something of a rare treat.

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Trishna ★★☆☆☆

"a peculiarly dull tale of romance that lacks any substantial passion."

Acclaimed director Michael Winterbottom is renowned for his ability to switch between genres with relative ease, with past successes including Jude (1996), 24 Hour Party People (2002) and The Killer Inside Me (2010). His latest venture is an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's penultimate novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles set in present day India and stars Freida Pinto, Riz Ahmed and Roshan Seth.

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Guilty ★★★★☆

" a powerful, heartbreaking and intense drama "

Concerning the most horrific legal scandal in modern French history, director Vincent Garenq's Guilty (Présumé coupable, 2011) is a gripping drama based on the memoirs of Alain Marecaux (Philippe Torreton) who was wrongly accused of several accounts of child molestation and thrust into a terrifying web of false testimonies and heavy handed police investigations.

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The Kid With a Bike ★★★★★

"a resounding success"

Directed by two time Palme d’Or-winning Belgium duo Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, The Kid with a Bike (Le Gamin au Vélo, 2011) continues this remarkably consistent sibling partnership's ability to capture the poetic essence beneath the misery which often consumes life.

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Take Shelter ★★★☆☆

"A refreshing answer to the special effects laden disaster films of Hollywood"

Screening at this year's 55th BFI London Film Festival, Take Shelter (2011) once again unites Shotgun Stories (2007) director Jeff Nichols and actor Michael Shannon. Set against a backdrop of Middle American domestic life, Take Shelter is a far more visual film, combining elements of terror with a kitchen sink drama that confirms both men as masters of their chosen trade.

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The Future ★★☆☆☆

" an overbearingly idiosyncratic mess of a film that lacks the subtle charm of her debut"

Miranda July's 2005 surreal debut feature, Me and You and Everyone We Know showcased her enormous potential, with fans of quirky, independent, cinema desperate to see what she’d produce next. Narrated by a caged, injured cat, The Future (2011) expands upon July’s unique ability to capture the difficulties of developing relationships and the awkwardness of making emotional attachments.

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Dragonslayer ★★★☆☆

" a punk rock manifesto for a disenfranchised, recession hit youth"

Director Tristan Patterson's award-winning documentary Dragonslayer (2011) (SXSW Grand Jury Prize for best documentary feature) documents the life of Josh 'Skreech' Sandoval, a jaded skateboarding veteran living in the sun-drenched, extreme sports-loving town of Fullerton, California.

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We Need to Talk About Kevin ★★★★★

"a bold, inventive and intensely unnerving psychological drama "

★★★★★

Directed by Lynne Ramsay (Ratchater, Morvern Callar) and based on Lionel Shriver’s hugely popular and critically acclaimed novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin is a visually sumptuous, meticulously acted and highly ambitious literary adaptation which is by far one of this year’s greatest cinematic achievements.

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Elena ★★★★☆

"A pitch perfect example of European arthouse cinema"

Director Andrei Zvyagintsev broke onto the scene with his remarkably assured 2003 debut The Return, a visually alluring and emotionally engrossing story of two young boys who embark on a road trip with their long lost father. His third feature Elena (2011) also deals with fraught domestic relationships and is a welcome confirmation that this promising Russian director is worthy of his early praise.

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Return ★★☆☆☆

"one of the most forgettable films of this year's LFF"

★★☆☆☆

Following the recent influx of anti-war films with a more inwardly-looking perspective, Liza Johnson's debut feature Return (2011) - which screens at this year's 55th BFI London Film Festival - stars Linda Cardellini as a female officer unable to reintegrate into society after the horrors she witnessed in Afghanistan, alongside Michael Shannon and John Slattery.

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Headhunters ★★☆☆☆

" horrifically incoherent, chaotic and ultimately a throwaway piece of cinema "

Adapted from Jo Nesbø's international bestselling novel Headhunters (2011), director Morten Tyldum's third full length feature is a taut Norwegian thriller, full of Scandinavian humour that’s already lined up for an invertible Hollywood remake.

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The Artist ★★★★★

"A joyous and enchanting adventure into the golden age of Hollywood that's impossible not to fall madly in love with."

 

A categorical success at this year's Cannes Film Festival, Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist is a gloriously executed love letter to the silent era of Hollywood, featuring an award-winning performance by Jean Dujardin (Best Actor at Cannes). A thoroughly enjoyable romp, The Artist looks set to be a crowd favourite at this year's BFI London Film Festival and a major contender for the Best Picture Oscar at next year's Academy Awards.

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The Dish and the Spoon ★★★☆☆

"Whilst its disjointed plot can at times seem a little jarring, it successfully lodges itself in your subconscious"

Alison Bagnall's witty and original romance The Dish and the Spoon (2011) is a gutsy independent love story which belies its modest budget, whilst also showcasing rising American actress Greta Gerwig's unique ability to be quirky, whilst also profoundly beautiful.


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Alps ★★★★☆

"Alps successfully captures the ridiculousness of human nature"

Alps is the eagerly awaiting follow up to Yorgos Lanthimos’s critically acclaimed, Oscar nominated, Dogtooth and certainly one of the hottest tickets at this year’s London Film Festival.

Much like Dogtooth, Alps’ surreal story is more effective the less you know about it. The film focuses on four peculiarly mismatched colleges. There’s a young, nubile gymnast, her demanding coach, an entrepreneurial paramedic and a caring, emotionally detached nurse. Together they’re collectively known as ‘The Alps’. They work as ‘substitutes’ but not in the conventional sense of the term, with the services they offer in keeping with Lanthimos’s obsessions with the mechanics of Hollywood and an inherent desire to escape the hardships of modern life. Needless to say what occurs is an absurd mix of jet black comedy and uncomfortably bizarre set pieces which, culminate in a series of surreal events.

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Without ★★★★☆

"an unnerving, darkly comic and deeply chilling meditative study of human behaviour"

Nominated for the Sutherland Award at this year’s BFI London Film Festival, Mark Jackson’s Without is a slow burning drama which recalls the subtle beauty of Kelly Reichardt’s minimalist style and her ability to capture the raw beauty of rural America.

Joslyn (Joslyn Jensen) is a recent high school graduate who takes a job caring for Frank, a disabled, catatonic, wheelchair bound, old man. Frank’s family have gone on holiday, leaving Joslyn alone with him in their isolated, Washington State island home. Before leaving they run her through an endless list of incredibly pedantic do’s and dont’s, including the varying volumes the television must be kept at, the food she can and can’t eat and oddly of most importance is that she “must not put the knives in the dishwasher!” There’s no internet connection, or any real phone reception, just her, Frank and the peaceful Island countryside which surrounds this remote community.

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Hut in the Woods ★★☆☆☆

"an empathetic portrayal of the crippling and destabilising effects of mental illness"

Hans Weingartner, the acclaimed director of The Edukators, returns with his third feature Hut in the Woods, a whirlwind journey into one man’s spiralling decent into madness and his inventive attempts to find redemption.

Martin (Peter Schneider) was a gifted mathematician, living in Berlin with a promising career and a steady girlfriend. However, when he returns from a six month spell in a psychiatric unit he finds he’s lost it all, with his girlfriend having moved on and the job saved for him by his former employers rescinded due to concerns over his ability to cope under pressure.

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She Monkeys ★★★★☆

"an undeniably astonishing and profoundly beautiful experience"

Swedish director Lisa Aschan's remarkably assured debut feature She Monkeys (2011) is a hormonally-charged, coming-of-age drama, depicting the conflict between two competitive teenage girls, and stars Mathilda Paradeiser, Linda Molin and Isabella Lindquist.


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Early One Morning ★★☆☆☆

"Early One Morning's detached mood is hard to become truly engrossed in"

Director Jean-Marc Moutout returns to the BFI London Film Festival with Early One Morning (2011) - starring Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Valérie Dréville and Xavier Beauvois - as he continues his exploration of the insular and alienating world of executive business and showcases a similar degree of visual panache and assured direction.

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Pariah ★★★★☆

" A wonderful example of independent filmmaking"

Written and directed by Dee Rees as an expansion of her Sundance Film Festival short film, Pariah is a refreshingly natural film which explores themes of sexuality and acceptance without ever pandering to generic plot holes and melodrama of similar teen dramas.

Pariah opens in a seedy back alley strip bar where Khia’s “My Neck, My Back (Lick it), with is exploitative lyrics and earth shattering bass reverberates at an ear damaging decibel level. Amongst this deeply misogynistic setting we join two effeminate looking young men thrusting dollar bills at the scantily clad dancers aiming to please them. It isn’t until we join them later on the night bus home we discover these soft skinned young men are actually teenage girls in masculine attire and the horribly lit bar was in fact a lesbian nightclub.

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Everything Must Go ★★☆☆☆

"all we’re left with is a misguided and emotionally numb affectation of other, more assured dramas"

Adapted from a Raymond Carver story, Dan Rush’s Everything Must Go stars Will Ferrell as a washed up alcoholic whose life has hit rock bottom.

Nick Halsey (Ferrell) is an executive salesman who, after a drunken incident whilst away on a business trip, loses his job and his wife all in the same day. After being ordered to pack up his desk, he returns home to find the locks have been changed, his bank account closed and all his belongings lay carelessly on the front lawn. With nowhere else to go and no money to remove his things, he decides to camp out in his front garden, sleeping on his lazy boy chair whilst drinking excessively to numb the pain.

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Dolphin Tale 3D ★★★☆☆

" Dolphin Tale 3D should be applauded for never manipulating the audience into a forced emotional response "

Charles Martin Smith’s, inspired-by-true-events, feel-good family movie, Dolphin Tale 3D exhibits an admirable refusal to cave-in to generic Disney dramatic devices, creating a restrained children’s movie about the importance of family and education.

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Le Quattro Volte ★★★★★

"you’ll be hard pressed to find a more enlightening or rewarding experience than this"

Whilst critics fell over themselves for Terence Malick’s metaphysical journey The Tree of Life (2011) there was another, less successful but in no way inferior existential examination into creation and spirituality - Michelangelo Frammartino's sublime Le Quattro Volte (2010).

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Potiche ★★★☆☆

" a hugely enjoyable ode to the delightfully playful cinema of France during the 1950s and 60s"

Set in the 1970s and showcasing the crème-de-le-crème of French film talent, Potiche (2010) is a lovingly nostalgic journey into the flamboyant films of Jacques Demy and Jean Renoir. Directed by renowned filmmaker François Ozon and starring legendary French actors Catherine Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu, Potiche is a comedy about the emancipation and political awakening of a trophy wife and has all the ingredients required to create a stylish portrait of continental whimsy.

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Johnny English Reborn ★☆☆☆☆

"more often than not the script’s slap-stick humour fails to hit the target"

It was 2003 when Rowan Atkinson first entered the world of government agents and espionage as Johnny English, a jovial and light-hearted parody of the James Bond franchise. It seems strange then that it’s only now we’re being presented with a follow-up, with Johnny English Reborn perhaps one of the most unlikely of sequels to materialise over recent years. 

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The Good, The Bad and The Multiplex

"The book’s accessibility is the key to its success. This isn’t a book for hardened film snobs, neither is it an ‘idiot’s guide’ to cinema."

Infuriated with the mundane, blockbuster heavy listings of your local cinema? Resent paying over the odds to sit in a stale, soulless auditorium, watching an oversized digital projection whilst eating extortionately priced junk food? Then you’ll find yourself right at home with The Good, The Bad and The Multiplex, the new book (and podium from which to preach all that is wrong with modern day cinema) by outspoken film critic Mark Kermode.

The Good, The Bad And The Multiplex will feel like common ground to those familiar with Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode’s weekly Radio Five film show, fleshing out the numerous arguments which present themselves, with the only difference being that there’s no calming influence to prevent these feelings of disenfranchisement sky rocketing into full blown rants – albeit deeply informed and impassioned rants.

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The Lost World

" This is a once in a lifetime experience which shouldn’t be missed."

Harry O. Hoyt's The Lost World (1925) screened as part of the Barbican's 'Silent Film & Live Music' series and was presented in partnership with 'Bristol Silents'. Scissor Sister’s musical director and keyboard player John Garden has composed an original score for this unique presentation of a seemingly lost classic - restored from nine separate prints to create its longest running incarnation.

O. Hoyt's adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novel The Lost World may have been originally released over 80 years ago, but its story about a prehistoric world hidden beyond the boundaries of mankind's exploration is one which still resonates with audiences today - recently proven by the re-release of Stephen Spielberg's Jurassic Park (1993).

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Chalet Girl ★★★☆☆

"Felicity Jones is outstanding"

An intrinsically British Rom-com which somehow manages to transcend the stale, formulaic approach of the genre, Chalet Girl (starring up-and-coming British actress Felicity Jones) hides a quite charming story behind its hideously cheap and schmaltzy facade

Following the tragic death of her mother, former pro skateboarder Kim (Felicity Jones) sacrifices her promising career in order to take care of her unemployed father (Bill Bailey). Her part time summer job working in one of London’s numerous rundown fried chicken restaurants has somehow become her full time job and the realisation soon hits that her life is going nowhere fast

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Instant Score: 3/5
Retrospective Score: 3/5
Total: 6/10