Tag Archives: Glasgow Film Festival 2014

GFF 2014: The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)

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From the off, Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel resembles a stunningly crafted watercolour postcard, plucked lovingly from the depths of your grandmother’s relic box. Its numerous characters fit almost like paper dolls on to the lustrous landscapes.

The story is this: in between the two world wars of the 20th century, M. Gustave H. (played by Ralph Fiennes) is the faithful concierge of the Grand Budapest Hotel, a finely decorated establishment perched on a mountain in Eastern Europe. Charming and a little camp, Gustave has managed to make an aged Duchess (Tilda Swinton) fall madly in love with him. When she dies, and the will states that Gustave inherits an expensive painting, he is blamed for her murder and imprisoned. With the help of his trusted lobby boy Zero (Tony Revolori), Gustave must escape from prison and prove his innocence.

Anderson deserves a firm pat on the back for this one. Whilst recognisable faces appear on screen, scene after scene, he manages to hone the film in with an expertly funny script and some gorgeous cinematography. The cast do a wonderful job, turning their enthusiasm up to one thousand and giving it their absolute all in this gratuitous, over the top picture that’s great fun to watch. Particular credit must go to the costume and set design teams too. Not only is it funny, but it’s dazzling and alluring on the eye.

The huge cast that festoon the posters in your local cinema, and the honourable Wes Anderson? Both deserve a rapturous round of applause for this. Lurid, funny and whip-smart, The Grand Budapest Hotel is an absolute cinematic riot in all the right ways.

The Grand Budapest Hotel opened the Glasgow Film Festival 2014. It has its UK nationwide release on 7th March

GFF 2014: 20 Feet from Stardom (Morgan Neville, 2013)

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Rarely does a documentary let you be both in awe of and feel pity for its protagonists. In 20 Feet from Stardom, director Morgan Neville does just that. While at some points these men and women make you want to stand on your cinema seat and sing to the heavens, he has a great ability to truly make you realise what life has been like for them.

They stand ever so slightly to the back of the stage, their voices filling records and auditoriums but never truly being the one with all the attention. They are the backing singers of today and of history, brought stunningly to the forefront in this rather rambunctious documentary.

Regardless, 20 Feet from Stardom is a glitzy, powerful affair in giving an in-depth look into the world of backup singers. Focusing on the most famous women and men over the years from Darlene Love to The Waters, it backs up the voice with some fond memories of the past, featuring interviews with Stevie Wonder and Mick Jagger to name a few.

It does something that a lot of documentaries fail to do: inform. Incorporating stock footage from the past that will be nostalgic to many, it also delves into the current lives of some of music’s most forgotten voices.

20 Feet from Stardom is a rushing, sass-filled affair that is impossible not to love. Get on top of your seats, ladies and gentleman: you’re in for a real treat here!

20 Feet from Stardom has its UK release on March 28th

GFF 2014: Starred Up (David Mackenzie, 2013)

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I woke up this morning still to find myself in the confined space of Starred Up. Isolating, dangerous and cutthroat, it’s a realistic outing into the prison genre after years of being near destroyed by hyperbolic stories and substandard acting efforts (we’re not pointing fingers, Mr. Dyer).

Surpassing the young offenders institutions, Eric winds up a high risk inmate at a British prison. His 19 year old mind still racing from the outside world, he struggles to understand how this incarcerated world works. As he meets his fellow inmate father for the first time in years, tensions heighten to an unbearable levels as he forms a rivalry rather than embracing the only recognisable figure.

Credit is most due here to the sublime Jack O’Connell, whose lead performance as Eric is absolutely astounding. His work here embodies a vindictive, violent figure who veers on the edge of being so infamous he becomes vulnerable. O’Connell’s undeniable skill almost effortlessly melds into this role, as if he’s been waiting to play Eric his whole life.

What makes Starred Up so different from its prison depicting predecessors is the fact that its solid script veers into the shocking but never overdoes it. The characters feel familiar, yet not clichéd. This is Jonathan Asser’s work. His first feature outing as a screenwriter is due almost entirely to his work as a prison therapist before he wrote the film. The very little that seems predictable is perhaps a true depiction of what prison life is really like, and we as an audience have been the ignorant ones after all.

Starred Up is a vindictive, stark piece of British cinema that refuses to let go days after you’ve seen it. Cold and haunting, you will never look at prison dramas in the same way again.

Starred Up has its UK release on March 21st

GFF 2014: Night Moves (Kelly Reichardt, 2013)

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Night Moves is an example of a film that works so tremendously well using very little. Set in an isolated American town, it uses a sparse landscape and accomplished cast in presenting a film that slowly burns its wick, choosing to avoid sparking up dynamite.

Three friends band together in the hopes of bringing down a local dam in an act of eco-terrorism. On the surface, it would seem all had been thought through, but there’s one thing they did not even begin to consider.

It feels all very real and non contrived. As these three characters converse, their words seldom steer towards a clichéd use of condemning words for the goverment. That dialogue is there, but it is used sparingly, surrounded instead by something that feels familiar; as if these activists are just normal rather than preachy.

Dakota Fanning subtly shines alongside Jesse Eisenberg, whose quiet, irregular voice differs from the usual rambling character he usually depicts. Both give wonderful performances, especially Fanning, who must be on her way to getting some Academy recognition at some point. It all feels and looks very natural, and that intrinsic feeling is down to two things: its performances and its cinematography.

The subtlety doesn’t last much past the first half of the film, after a torrid realisation hits the group. It suddenly steers away from being tense and gorgeous to something strangely psychotic and overly dragged out. It’s a real shame, considering the first half is so striking.

Night Moves is undoubtedly worth seeing due to its subtlety and enchanting cinematography in the first half, but as soon as the surprise hits, it’s a little bit more self indulgent.

GFF 2014 – Nymphomaniac Vols I & II (Lars Von Trier 2014)

chapter_5_photo_by_zentropaLars von Trier is an undeniable master of character study. In Nymphomaniac, when all the provocative material is stripped away, both promotionally and cinematically, what is left is the undeniably profound study of a woman torn between holding onto her problems and embracing them wholeheartedly.

On a snowy night, an old literary enthusiast named Seligman finds a woman badly beaten on the street. Her name is Joe, and as he takes her in for the night, they sit down and discuss with visceral honesty, the women’s lustful and torrid sexual past.

What von Trier has created was mercilessly split into two separate parts (his words, not mine) for its cinematic release. It does in fact, work really well. The two films, while both admirable in their own respects, do feel almost like polar opposites; as if the story has been suddenly turned on its head.

VOLUME I

It takes a lot of tenacity to make a film about obsession with sex. In a way, it could be construed by many as indulgent, but von Trier, with his thoughtful script and his wonderful cast has succeeded in making something that feels entirely natural and soft, rather that exploitative and anatomical.

What initially strikes you in the first volume of this story, is that it feels relaxingly unpretentious. Although von Trier is visionary in his methods, his work is often dismissed as too symbolic for his own good. He smartly tackled that by dissecting his symbols and metaphors on screen. Not only does it make the film much easier to follow, it lays all its cards on the table; never seeming to be shady.

The highlights of the film most definitely come down to its performers. As Seligman and Joe converse through the night, their performances by Stellan Skarsgård and Charlotte Gainsbourg feel primal, despite the dialogue feeling scripted. It’s a technique that works in the film’s favour, as this woman’s infatuated past feels almost fable like, as if read from the pages of a book. Stacy Martin is most impressive in her first film role as Joe’s younger self. She glows a rather youthful beauty, and gives potentially the best lead performance in the film; deserving praise for her inhibition-free attitude. She’s clearly delved into this film just as deep as the protégés lower down the credits. Surprisingly, Shia LaBoeuf, being the new-found pretentious performance artist that he is, is not overtly annoying here. If you get past his questionable accent (he’s channelling his Australian/Irish/East London roots, evidently), he gives a fine performance as the only man to be remembered through her years of sexual exploration.

Of course, the sex must be addressed. Much to everyone’s surprise, sexual gratuitousness is not what inhabits Nymphomaniac. What there is is entirely justified and tasteful, never straying into the exploitative. The most explosive scene comes within the third chapter, ‘Mrs H’. Both comical and heartbreaking, it’s a fantastic testimony to the screenwriting and Uma Thurman, who gives one of the best performances of her career.

What feels so great about the first volume is this unexpected humour that is laced through von Trier’s beautiful script. It’s indulgent in the right areas, surprisingly unpretentious and both lustful and desperately sullen. If the film was to carry on on a different but not too dissimilar tangent, it may have been a masterpiece as a whole body of work. That leads us on to…

VOLUME II

It’s an exceptionally long film, and at some point, desires to veer into something other than this woman’s sexual addiction. It does so, but in a way that after a few effective comical stabs, feels a little bit contrived, something most definitely not associated with von Trier’s work.

It’s hard to discuss this point in the film without spoiling it, so I will try my hardest not to give anything away. Whilst the first half is much of what you already know about Nymphomaniac, the second half is fairly unknown. It should be understood that, despite appearances from Jamie Bell (whose sadomasochistic performance is as impressive as it is disturbing) and Willem Defoe, Volume II is where the ideas may slightly run thin for von Trier.

Saying that, it is an enjoyable thing to watch, still oddly funny but overrun with something that’s ultimately bleak. It’s a hard thing to watch as it develops, as the sexual liberation that makes the first half so enticing to watch disappears into something realistic and consequential.

It needed direction, and the direction that von Trier took it in was sometimes eery; sometimes unexpected, but that doesn’t make it any less beguiling and strangely magical to sit through.

Nymphomaniac appetizer – Chapter 8: The Gun from Zentropa on Vimeo.

GFF 2014: The Double (Richard Ayoade, 2014)

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If there’s a topic that Richard Ayoade tackles with impeccable skill, it’s infatuation. In his break out hit, the 2010 coming-of-age drama ‘Submarine’, he created a film about two young teenagers hopelessly in love but surrounded by break up and melancholy. In his latest feature, The Double, he once again creates an unrequited infatuation, but never veers into the obsessive.


It tells the story of Simon, a timid man who day by day is ignored and forgotten by his co-workers and mother. As all he yearns for slips from his hands, a man walks into the office. His name is James. Confident and daring, he could not be more different from Simon, apart from the fact that he looks identical to him. As James teaches Simon the ways to entice the woman he loves, James carries out a deceitful act of sabotage that drives Simon to insanity.

The Double presents itself as a ‘comedy’ on paper, and bar the few and far between lines of dark humour, it could not be further from it. Haunting and psychotic, it verges on this fine tightrope of insanity that drags you with it as it teeters off either side. It’s a bizarre turn for Ayoade, whose comic background would suggest he couldn’t make a thriller as fine as this, but to his credit he does it seemingly effortlessly, and with a sensational amount of skill. In fact, it wouldn’t be ridiculous to suggest that Ayoade’s effort here makes him one of Britain’s best modern directors. It lends itself, through its harrowing score and masterful cinematography, to the horror greats of the seventies and eighties. It’s bizarre, at times terrifying but with each and every frame drags you into the pit of your seat.

The performances, particularly Jesse Eisenberg as the both shy and vindictive leads of Simon and James, are scarily good. Eisenberg gives a career defining performance. The dual aspect of it also gives Mia Wasikowska, as the Simon’s love interest, a character that’s both caustic and charming. She’s a fine young actress and gives a performance that’s one of her own personal bests. There are numerous other cast members that crop up over the ninety minute runtime, both Wallace Shawn and Noah Taylor make great appearances as delusional co-workers, and Ayoade has even squeezed in roles for his Submarine alumni Yasmin Paige and Craig Roberts too.

The Double owes just as much to those in post production as it does to those during the filming of it. With an impeccable British direction, great international performances and a script and score to die for, The Double is truly one of the most enticing, interesting and genuinely excellent films of the year so far.

The Double plays at the Glasgow Film Festival on both Saturday 22nd and Sunday 23rd February