Antoinette in the Cevennes

 Seen at the Lumiere Cinema, Christchurch, New Zealand

Cecil on his last solo cinema trip during a film-packed week away.

Cecil says: You could see this film as a story about a young woman’s relationship with a donkey; it could also be a study of the lengths physical desire, especially forbidden desires, can take you to; or you could just sit back and enjoy the beautiful Cevennes scenery, as our main protagonist hikes a trail made famous by Robert Louis Stephenson.

The relationship between Antoinette and the donkey Patrick is probably the most charming aspect of this film. It takes time to create a bond with Patrick and he is as stubborn as any cartoon Eeyore at first, but by the end there is a closeness which sees them wander off into the hills together, leaving us wondering what happens to her next.

Or do we wonder? I mean, this is where I slightly had a problem with this film, in that I neither respected what Antoinette was doing (unlike her fellow diners at the hostels, many of whom called her courageous, romantic…) nor found it really believable, and although she is engaging on some levels, she is also a pain in the bum, and I would certainly not want her around to complicate my life! (I would probably think the same as the unsmiling hiker at dinner who probably expresses what many like me were thinking, though I’d probably not have spoken out with such a judgmental line in public).

The other slightly annoying thing in the film is that in the opening scenes, Antoinette and her primary school class are performing a song for the end of school year; they do a great job of it, but I spent the rest of the film trying for the life of me to work out what the song was, knowing it had been a hit in my own youth - I don’t want to put in a spoiler here, rather save future viewers wasting their memory and energy on this task: it was Kiki Dee’s ‘Amoureuse’…

So, while it was a pleasant enough way to pass a drizzly afternoon of a winter holiday, it’s not a film I’d rush to see again.

By the way, plot is: young primary school teacher having an affair with colleague and father of one of her pupils. She finds out where this family are going on summer holiday - the Cevennes - and decides to create a coincidence by turning up on the same trail…Yes, exactly, I mean, really??

***

Herself

 Seen at the Academy Gold Cinema, Christchurch

Cecil going solo again - all this week in fact.

Cecil says: Watching ‘Herself’ in a Christchurch cinema surrounded by people I don’t know and with Bea thousands of miles away, I suddenly found myself thinking of Bruno Ganz in ‘Wings of Desire’ (Himmel über Berlin). I felt like I was watching over both the action on the screen in front of me, taking place in Dublin, with a young single mother who has escaped from domestic violence, and over the people in the audience around me: all locals so in on the tradition in this cinema to have an ice cream as you watch the movie (I think I was the only one not licking a cone among the 30 or so watching with me). And, as usual, I was the very last to leave the room, having seen all the credits, putting the film to bed somehow but learning more about the main writer, actor and producer, Claire Dunne, and getting a nice list of the music that made the soundtrack.

But, like Bruno Ganz the angel looking down over Berlin, I did get involved in the film. Dunne has created a scarily believable scenario and a very empathetic character in Sandra, who struggles with flashbacks, traumatised kids and social services.

The film is definitely not all doom and gloom, though. There’s a message in there on the kindness of strangers (something of which we must all at some point in our lives have had a taste), of community working together to achieve things, and above all of resilience and perseverance.

The girls playing Sandra’s daughters do a fantastic job. How much do you need to coach a 3-4-5 year old girl in the traumas their characters have gone through to get them to act so accurately? Or do you just get them to imagine something like your most precious toy being thrown away or broken by someone you don’t like?

The other actors are peripheral really, and most of their faces unfamiliar to me, though I did recognise Harriet Walter playing the doctor who is so generous to the needy Sandra, and she played her part well, too.

I did wonder what Bea would have made of the plaintive ballad sung by Sandra towards the end. Bea tells a good tale of her friend and her backpacking days in Ireland and almost groaning at yet another pub with a local getting up to sing their favourite heart-rending song. So, strangely enough again, I became Bruno Ganz the angel at that point in the film, and was thinking of Bea instead of getting inside the heart and soul of Sandra.

Overall, I do recommend Herself. It’s not a cheery light-hearted flick; it’s more gritty with a serving of humour and hope. And I look forward to what Claire Dunne has up her sleeve next, both acting and writing.

****

James and Isey

 Seen at the Alice Cinema, Christchurch, New Zealand

Cecil alone again for this trip!

Cecil says: After 6 days in New Zealand, I thought it was time to see a bit of Maori culture, so chose James & Isey as my Sunday morning film fix.

It’s a documentary just covering the lead-up to Isey’s 100th birthday in April 2019. Her son James says at one point that he wanted to mark the occasion with something special, and he reckoned nobody had done a documentary about a mother and son like this before.

Isey is a feisty lady, brought up by Maori parents who believed that speaking English would give her more of a chance in life, so she actually speaks very little of her family’s native tongue: “Kia ora,” she giggles at one point, like a British tourist might after arriving on a cruise ship and having a ring of flowers draped round their neck.

James, in contrast is a shaman, in touch with the spirits, connecting higher up than just the God we read about in the Bible (he is also Christian by the way, so this does not come across as blasphemous). He knew he had the ‘gift’ at age 5 but the powers only came through in his 40s.

He used to be a rock star, and we see video clips of him singing and gyrating to his 1980s hits; he was transitioning to a career on the stage and screen when he had a stroke, which left him paralysed for 6 months.

I’m not sure of the timeline, but he returned to his parents when his father was diagnosed with cancer, and he has lived there ever since, not really ‘caring for’ his Mum, but living with her ‘in harmony,’ as he describes it.

We are shown scenes of him doing shamanic things on a cow about to the slaughtered, on waters before a fishing trip, and towards the end sitting at the northern tip of New Zealand, his spirits’ home, where the Pacific and Tasman oceans meet.

He says he gets laughed at by mates of his brother and he probably comes across as weird to a 21st century urban and westernised community (in Auckland?), but at the actual 100th birthday party, he looks totally at ease at a ceremony of welcome by local haka performers, male and female.

His Mum Isey has a powerful voice, still. She can (usually) blow out her birthday candles, and right at the end we hear her rendition of ‘Que sera, sera.’ Pretty impressive for a centenarian. The only slightly tense moment I felt - for James especially, though he did well to hide it if he was annoyed - was when one of the older guests, a 92 year old gent, briefly stole the limelight from Isey. This was just after James had said Isey will give us a song, but we ended up hearing the 92 year old giving a song instead, and Isey never got to do her number in front of all her guests…

I feel drawn to shamanism in indigenous culture - Native American also - not that I have fully tapped into any gift I may have, even with my ‘healing hands.’ I have never yet felt any connection to Maori culture, probably because it seems based so totally on prowess in fighting or showing off strength (all those hakas leave me cold I’m afraid), but maybe James and Isey has helped me get a sense of where I’d fit in if Bea and I ever do decide to live long term in New Zealand…

***

Six Minutes to Midnight

 Seen at the Lumiere Cinema in Christchurch, New Zealand

Cecil went it alone for this one (and the next 3).

Cecil says: Great opening scene to this movie set just days before the start of the Second World War along the south coast of England.

The mood of that scene is very Graham Greene, as a man searches desperately for something hidden behind a row of books - is it money or something more concrete? Whatever it is makes him scarper on his push bike and into the local town where the next scene has him taking a deck-chair on the pier, and before you know it his hat is floating up into the air beyond the pier.

It’s a great scene-setter for this spy story starring the ever-brilliant Judi Dench, the increasingly visible Eddie Izzard (who co-wrote the screenplay - is he trying to be a new Kenneth Branagh, producing material he can feature in?), and the rather wonderful Carla Juri, who reminded me terribly of a close friend now gone, though it was good to remember her in every scene involving Ilse.

The story holds up well in classic spy-style, keeping us guessing always who the baddies and who the goodies are. My only question mark was over one of the school girls, Astrid - we aren’t really shown where her change of heart emerges from at the end.

I’m still not 100% convinced by Eddie Izzard. I felt he was more at ease playing a character probably nearer to the real him in Boy Choir. In this one he almost carried it off as the half-German spy taking a job as English teacher in a school where the girls are all linked to the Nazi regime back in Germany.

But there was something missing somehow and I can’t tell if it was in the writing or in the acting, or is it me? I mean, I should be able to relate, as the role he plays is very much the kind of role I might have been called on to play if I had lived in those tense times, but somehow I didn’t feel immersed totally in the action or the storyline (unlike for example in Remains of the Day); I was conscious throughout of watching a film and observing from the outside.

It made me wonder what Judi Dench made of the script. She was fantastic as always, as the slightly naive principal of the college, but could she see the slight weakness in the screenplay when she first saw it?

How could we have learned more about Mr Miller and Ilse’s past or their relationship? Would that have helped?

It’s an intriguing tale, based apparently on true events, though the credits at the very end claim the characters are all fictitious. I enjoyed it, and loved seeing it on my first real holiday break since Covid started almost 18 months ago.

***