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| Butterfly Vision Photo: Wild Bunch |
Butterfly Vision, London Film Festival, BFI player, from October 14 to 23
Before we get to the telly, here's a bit of streaming stuff. If there was one positive thing to come out of Covid it was film festival's stretching their wings a bit to let audiences who don't live in the city where a festival is being held still watch some of the films online. The BFI Player currently has a selection that includes this timely Ukrainian film that considers the PTSD of a former prisoner of war as she tries to rebuild her life. Rita Burkovska is compelling in the central role of Lilya and writer/director Maksym Nakonechnyi avoids any voyeurism of her brutal experience as a captive, letting it bleed into her reality instead by way of glitchy flashbacks that suddenly pixelate the image and prove as unsettling to the viewer as the protagonist.
Sick Of Myself, London Film Festival, BFI player, from October 14 to 23
Our second selection from LFF is this acerbic comedy from Kristoffer Borgli, that skewers the modern selfie-driven need to be the centre of attention. Signe (Kristine Kujath Thorp, putting in a magnetic performance) starts to try to vie for the limelight with her artist boyfriend Thomas (Eirik Sæther). Her ruse is a sort of riff on Munchausen's syndrome, which takes us down a body horror route showing the disastrous consequences. Borgli's blackly comic take on all of this suggests we all, in crafting modern society as it is, share some of Signe's culpability.
Rush, 10.40pm, BBC1, Wednesday, October 12
The story of the rivalry between F1 aces James Hunt and Niki Lauda is given a glossy big screen retelling in Ron Howard's film. Written by Peter Morgan, it's no surprise that the writer of Frost/Nixon and The Queen puts psychology to the fore and amps up the win-at-any-costs mentality of Lauda, in particular - something that led the driver to have a horrific accident. Howard's action on the racing circuit does the job but it's Lauda's battle back from the accident that really holds the interest and Daniel Bruhl, who can be a bit hit and miss in terms of performances, is on the top of his game as the driven Austrian. Chris Hemsworth puts in a solid supporting performance, although he mainly leans into the established playboy image of the English sportsman.
Belle, 9pm, BBC4, Thursday, October 13
Jennie Kermode writes: If you think that young mixed-race women struggling to find acceptance in aristocratic circles is a new issue, Amma Asante's handsomely presented 2013 costume drama will set you straight. Asante, who explored related themes in A United Kingdom - which you can catch on BBC2 at 11.14pm on Tuesday - and Where Hands Touch, By its very existence, Belle points up the glaring absence of black faces in most heritage films and the distorted picture of British history that it represents. The film, which is based on real life events, also explores issues around the ending of the slave trade and the ways in which women engaged with politics before they were able to do so directly. There's a romance at the centre but equally important is the heroine's relationship with her father. Asante's characters are always both politicised and political, vitally connected with a wider world, enabling the director to take on bigger stories through ostensibly simple tales. Read our interview with Asante and her star Gugu Mbatha-Raw.
The Nightingale, 11.20pm, Film4, Saturday, October 15
Jennie Kermode writes: A searing condemnation of colonialism, racism and misogyny, Jennifer Kent's follow-up to the highly acclaimed The Babadook is an astounding piece of filmmaking. It follows displaced Irishwoman Clare (Aisling Franciosi), called 'nightingale' by the sadistic Lieutenant Hawkins (Sam Clafin) who lords it over the small Tasmanian settlements in his territory and, when she resists him, responds with devastating violence. The remainder of the film follows her quest for revenge and her developing connection with the young indigenous man, Billy (Baykali Ganambarr), whom she takes on as her guide. Brutal and unrelenting yet majestic in its visual scope, this is a work that has the quality of Ford or Coppola in their prime. It's a tough watch but worth every moment.
Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, Netflix, from Thursday, October 13
Céline Sciamma continued to prove she is one of France's modern leading filmmaking talents with this multiple award winner. A costume drama that delivers both in terms of craft and content, it tells the story of portrait artist (Noémie Merlant), who is hired to paint the portrait of Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), who is reluctantly preparing for an arranged marriage. Passion brews amid the paint pots and Sciamma carefully articulates the longing and freedom offered by their tryst, offering up a sensual exploration of artist and muse. Tension abounds, from Marianne's initial fear of having her secret project discovered to problems thrown up by forbidden love, but Sciamma always keeps the female gaze front and centre. As Merlant told us: "You’re playing around with emotions such as frustration, imagination, and desire."
The Tingler, 9.05pm, Talking Pictures TV (Freeview Channel 82), Friday, October 14
Jennie Kermode writes: There's a long history of filmmakers going beyond just sound and vision to make their films a more immersive experience, but few films have made quite as much of an impression with such gimmicks as William Castle's The Tingler. In early screenings, seats were secretly wired up so that patrons got electric shocks like those caused by the titular beastie. Given that the best way to deter it is to scream, you can imagine the result. Various festival revivals have played the same game since, and you can get a similar effect at home by setting your phone to vibrate 74 minutes after you start watching, tucking it into your waistband and forgetting about it. Lose yourself in watching the great Vincent Price playing a pathologist obsessed by fear, in a film which also features the first ever cinematic depiction of an LSD trip. The monster may be small and distinctly rubbery and really quite cute, but in places, the dialogue is vicious.
You'll have to pop over to Vimeo and log in to watch this week's short selection, which is Tom Marshall's Postcode Lottery. Made for Channel 4's Coming Up, which aimed to bring on new talent, it certainly did the trick for Marshall, who has gone on to direct Wasted, Ted Lasso, Famalam (which he also wrote) and The Cleaner among others.
