Julia Blue

Seen at the Glasgow Contemporary Arts Centre during the Glasgow Film Festival

Cecil says: We wanted to see Julia Blue partly because we had planned to travel through Ukraine in 2014 on our overland journey to Australia, but had to cancel because of what was happening in the Crimea and the east of the country. But I also always like the drama genre when it involves a journalist at work in places that have hit the news – it’s the kind of film like The Year of Living Dangerously, that used to inspire me to be a journalist one day myself.

It also happened to fit in with our schedule in Glasgow so we could go straight to this film from another morning screening earlier.

It was great to see a Ukrainian perspective on things, especially as the country has been out of the news in the West lately, but the Troubles are still ongoing. Having said that, this was very much a coming-of-age film with Ukraine really the context rather than the subject-matter for the film.

Budding photo-journalist Julia helps out at a rehab hospital for men wounded in the war, and there she meets and falls for a guy from Donetsk. The film is a sweet portrayal of developing romance, where Julia is the main focus, she has girly catch-ups with a fellow student, a boy back in her village who fell in love with her years before, and her application to go to Germany for a full-on photo-journalism degree.

She has a big decision to make, tossing up between her romance and her career. It’s the classic dilemma nearly all 20 year olds come up against, so brought back memories of my own conflicts over such things back in the 80s.

But it resonated for me also because of so many reminders of things we saw when doing that overland journey to Australia. The pot-holed roads reminded me of Uzbekistan; the buses and taxis were reminiscent of the same in Romania or Georgia; the buildings could have been anywhere we visited in the ex-Soviet Union; and the family dinner in the rural village reminded me of our own invitation to a family in Azerbaijan.

I couldn’t help noticing that the ‘parents’ looked so old, but were probably actually younger than I am even now, but that can be as much to do with clothes and hairstyle as it is actual ageing.

So I enjoyed this film as much for the memories and thoughts it provoked in me as for its actual content. Having said that, it did make me think that coming-of-age movies were few and far between when I was coming of age myself. I can only really think of American Graffiti, as being contemporary to my life, though I didn’t even drive at the time and had none of those tribal things that were depicted in that 1970s classic.

No, I liked Julia Blue, and it was nice that the producer and director were there for a chat afterwards in the bar. They did really well with crowdfunding for this film, as the credits showed at the end. I wish there were more films like this on the circuit, too.

***.5

Bea says: An altogether very nice film about a young woman in her twenties breaking away from tradition and expectations (her friend's marriage symbolising that very strongly indeed) and forging her own, more adventurous path.

Like Cecil, I enjoyed the scenery and reminders of our own travels through that part of the world, but this film also gave me pause for thought about some of the conflict-ridden times of recent history - in our part of the world this kind of storyline (help out at a military hospital, meet an injured soldier) belongs to WW2 period films, perhaps occasionally to Vietnam or maybe Afghanistan (don't think I know of any though), but for many parts of the world this is very current to a young person's experience.  This is why it is important to see international films...\

***.5

Girl

Seen at the Glasgow Film Theatre during the Glasgow Film Festival 2019

Cecil says: Girl is an extraordinary film on so many levels. It’s the story of a few months in the life of a teenage transgender girl who is training to be a ballerina. We go through the struggles this involves on both journeys: dealing with the transition from boy to girl and the physical ordeal any young person has to put themselves through to make the grade as a ballet dancer.

Actually the gender journey is already done for the Girl Lara. She is a girl as far as we can see, and we never think of her as a boy at all, but we live through her medical appointments, her therapy sessions and her treatments as the system helps her body to change, though it’s never quick enough for the teenager who just wants to get there now.

The dance school scenes, with the punishing schedule and the amazing contortions her body has to go through, not to mention her poor feet – bloodied by countless pointe steps - are almost the more exhausting to watch. So intense and so difficult. And as one of the teachers says, the other girls have an advantage in starting to dance at a much earlier age, and doing the pointe walks from age 12, whereas Lara is starting from scratch at 15.

And then there are the struggles of just being an adolescent, no matter what your gender. The scene when the other dance school girls gang up on Lara is heart-breaking (though Bea says that all teenage girls at some point will be ganged up on, for whatever reason – it just happens to be Lara’s birth gender which is the focal point in this case).

The scenes where Lara is getting medical advice and therapy felt much more realistic than the recent Channel 4 TV series Butterfly, where the Mum reacted rather dramatically to an initial No from the Clinic and took her daughter off to America for (very expensive) treatment. I actually don’t believe there would be such a focus on surgery so early in most people’s journey as they indicate for Lara, but other than that, the depiction of the treatment process felt quite genuine to me.

I can imagine some trans activists getting annoyed that Lara was not played by a transgender actor. But Victor Polster was fantastic in the role, and as we found later in a Google search of the casting process, the producers wanted a lead actor who could dance at this level, which is no mean feat. It is only a really good dancer who can go from the wooden moves of the opening lessons to the grace and skills of Lara’s dancing later in the film. Apparently 500 people auditioned for the role, including 7 trans actors, but none of them was a good enough dancer. So they had to go to dance schools to find the right person to play the role.

There were fine performances also from Lara’s father (Arieh Worthalter), and even her little brother – played by Oliver Bodart - had a very moving scene where he reacts badly to being taunted for having a trans sister.

One thing I did think was that Lara was very lucky to have support from every single member of her family. That would have been a probable third battle ground in Lara’s life because there would always be an old uncle or cousin who didn’t accept her transition, but maybe that would have complicated the plot too much to add that level as well.

The self-harming scene was awful to watch but also superbly well-acted, both by Polster, and by Worthalter in his response.

So, Girl is an amazing movie. It is very intense, but with long periods of silence too (long enough for my rumbling stomach to be audible for anyone in the seats nearby, I reckon). Very thought-provoking, but beautiful too.

****

Bea says: I really enjoyed this sensitive handling of the very common (at the moment) transgender theme; although in many ways for me this film is really about the growing pains of adolescence with transgender being an additional dimension.  

Lara is adjusting to a new school which has the added complication of being a performing arts school, to a new town, and she is navigating her way to adult life roles as a dancer and in her family.  

She is very quiet as a character, perhaps painfully shy and struggles to speak to anyone.  The film follows her life intimately and so we get an insight into her struggles which her family, teachers and therapists do not, which actually felt to me like a real privilege. 

 The final scene, a few years in Lara's future, brought hope and joy.

Highly recommended, atlhough some scenes are hard to watch.

****

Mary Queen of Scots

Seen at the Showcase Cinemas in Paisley (Scotland)

Cecil says: Mary Queen of Scots has a dark feel to it. We saw it on a gloomy damp day in Scotland, and many of the scenes were set in similar circumstances although hundreds of years ago, but above all these were dark times, when a view expressed out of place, or a belief that didn’t chime with those in charge could mean losing your head, literally. And of course, Mary ultimately did just that.

It’s a striking film in that the two main characters are both women – in a period when women didn’t traditionally hold power – and both Saoirse Ronan (Mary) and Margot Robbie (Elizabeth) are magnificent in their roles. Of course, ultimately, you get the sense of male power pulling the strings and scheming for their own positions of influence, and it could be argued that the men scheming around Mary is what led to her downfall.

Mary is a character talked of a lot even today, and I can remember when we lived in North Yorkshire that various places we visited laid claim to being places of refuge for her when she was on the run from Scotland. I had to look up after the film to work out some of the historical detail – such as how she reckoned she had a better claim to the English throne than Liz (basically because Catholics didn’t recognise marriage after a divorce and therefore didn’t recognise offspring from such marriages).

I was also made to reflect on the ravages of small pox (Mary got lucky with her episode; Elizabeth less so, and the film shows all too starkly how the pox pock-marked Elizabeth’s complexion for years to come afterwards).

I personally don’t care about historical accuracy in movies like this: I believe the meeting between Mary and Elizabeth was fictitious, but actually great cinema, with the dance-like scenes as the two of them gradually got closer to seeing each other through the hanging laundry sheets.

The scenery was epic of course, set in beautiful Highland Scotland. And the performances all round were superb.

But the film didn’t leave me with any positive feelings or sense of justice done (or undone). None of the characters really came across sympathetically enough for me to identify with them, or to care overly what happened to them.

Both monarchs were headstrong and arrogant, as I guess monarchs needed to be back then to survive, and the lackies around them came across as just self-serving and ambitious. The only character I felt any actual sympathy for was the effeminate Rizzo, who ends up being dragged off to a gruesome death just because Mary was being undermined at that particular juncture in proceedings.

I would – and maybe should – give this film four stars, but for the mood it left me in (dark and brooding), I can only give it 3.5 stars.

***.5

Bea says: I was keen to see this as Cecil and I move between Australia and Scotland at present, and as I was educated in Australia my knowledge of the monarchy of Scotland and England is based on films and TV series (although there have been quite a few of those).  As a result I can't vouch for the historical accuracy at all, but I did enjoy a film about a time in history where two women were running the two countries 

Despite their differences, bitterness and rivalry, I liked how this film portrayed this responsibility as bringing them together.  I was aware from previous films/series that there was a lot of intrigue around the thrones and that Mary's choice of husband was perhaps not ideal, so those aspects of the story were familiar to me.

We saw this on a dark, cold February day and it was dark and cold on screen too.  Very apt and it set the mood well, although was not uplifting at all.

After watching, I decided a goal (now perhaps for 2020) would be to read one of the many good histories of Mary and Elizabeth available.

**** 

The Mule

Seen at the lovely Rex Theatre, Charlton (Victoria)

Cecil says: We went to see The Mule because that’s what was on at the lovely old Rex Theatre in Charlton, Victoria. I love this sort of community cinema, run by the people of Charlton, with just three screenings a week, so it was a shame to see only about 20 bums on the 400 or so seats, especially with a beautiful grand piano on the stage before the film and a pianist picking out some tunes to create a great atmosphere ahead of the movie.

This was Clint Eastwood’s latest offering. Boy, he’s getting on now and he plays a 90 year old retired day lily horticulturalist Earl Stone, who gets involved in drug running, when he needs some cash after the banks foreclose on his property.

There’s a sense that there is a lot about Eastwood himself in the storyline. When work or a hobby is all-consuming and family comes second through the decades, there comes a point when regrets start to pile up and a need to reconcile as life comes towards its final straight.

For a film involving Mexican drug cartels and police busts, there is surprisingly little violence and gun fire on screen, so although as with any drug-related film, there is an increasing sense of foreboding as Stone gets nearer and nearer to being caught, it’s not one of those films where you shudder at the blood and gore or the easy use of firepower to resolve conflict.

That said, it is still a very male film. Women don’t get much of a look-in, except perhaps the ex-wife, who also somehow didn’t come across as very real – I begin to wonder if Eastwood has ever created a female character that shows he really gets women. If his ex-wife held a candle for him all these years, surely there would have been more contact and she wouldn’t have just walked out like she apparently did all those years ago.

And then there is the slightly weird scene where 90 year old Stone hires in two young prostitutes for his motel room; it’s a brief scene, but somehow felt like an Eastwood fantasy being played out, along with his antics with the girls at the Mexican cartel party at another point.

It’s really well filmed, though, and keeps the audience interested, with a good storyline running through it. And it was quite nice to read that it was based on the true story of a WW2 vet in the 1980s who got involved in drug-running for the Mexican cartels. It would be interesting to know how much of the character is based on the true Mule and how much on Eastwood, given what I have said in this review about it feeling like it being a lot about Clint. Did he relate to this guy? Or did he just embellish the story to fit with his own life story?

***

Bea says: I was a bit reluctant to see this and only went because of its location as we really wanted to visit the Charlton cinema and this was what was showing there on the day we could go.  Although generally in my experience, Eastwood films are usually worth a watch, so I gave it a go.

Actually I quite enjoyed it  I liked the story a lot - the premise of a pretty straight old guy in the word of drug running and cartels was great, and gave me quite a few chuckles.  I also liked Stone's stoic approach to eventually being caught and imprisoned - a good life lesson in taking one's just desserts.

Down sides - few really, except for its woeful potential scoring on the Bechtel test....

Very diverting.  Recommended if you have time to kill; would be a good one to watch with with older relatives too.

***.5

The Keeper

Seen at the wonderful Balwyn Theatre in Melbourne

Cecil says: I knew I’d enjoy The Keeper, and I wasn’t at all disappointed. In fact, it’s the kind of film I could probably see five times and still not tire of it. A really lovely cinematic experience at the really lovely art deco Balwyn Theatre in Melbourne.

So Bert Trautmann had stopped playing by the time I got into football at the tender age of 7, but I realise now that he had only just retired, and in fact was still managing teams in England at that point. 

His story was well enough known, though, for me to have the basics from my childhood education: German POW stays in England, gets a break into football at the highest level, and plays a Cup Final at Wembley where he breaks his neck but heroically (and with a massive dose of good luck) carries on playing.

I even didn’t remember that he played for Manchester City, but clearly if you are a Man City fan, he is a bit of an icon, and amazingly even down in the heart of Melbourne, 10,000 miles away from MCR, there are fans who came to see The Keeper, as a father/son duo in the front row were decked out in full Man City gear. I shook their hand at the end of the film!

How a film begins is so important to set the tone, I think. And I loved the opening scenes of The Keeper: first scene was of a wartime dance floor in northern England; lots of lively jivers who have to stop dancing because the air raid siren sounds; then we switch to a battle front, with tired and scared-looking German soldiers walking through a wood, where they get ambushed.

And that’s one of the beautiful things about this film. Right from the start it gives you an insight into two sides of the story: how it felt day-to-day in war-weary England, with POW camps in town and the reaction to a German – even a good footballing German – getting involved in the community after the war. But also how it felt from the German perspective, both among the fellow POWs until the war ended, and then how it was to be that German trying to fit in and fall in love among people who perceive you as the enemy still.

All powerful stuff. And so well casted with David Kross excellent as Trautmann and Freya Mavor (was in Sunshine on Leith) very good also as Margaret. John Henshaw was really realistic also as the father and football coach in dank, dark northern England in post-war.

Some scenes didn’t work as well for me – like the big discussion between the couple some months after the tragedy of losing their son – but as Bea pointed out to me, the stilted dialogue might well have been true to the time, when people’s self-awareness and communication skills were not as advanced as today, not to mention emotional literacy.

But this is a moving film about milestones in individual lives and milestones in history, with some great football footage thrown in, and I particularly loved the vintage image of muddy pitches, those proper jerseys footballers wore in those days, and the massive crowds of men in flat caps totally exposed to the rain. Ah it was a different world back then.

I must see this film again.

*****

Bea says: I wasn't overly keen on seeing this as i thought it would be an overdose on football, and being that bit younger than Cecil, I didn't know anything about Bert Trautmann at all.

But -  l loved it, would be happy to watch it multiple times and we bought my parents the DVD for Christmas.  

This is possibly because there are some cultural reference points for me - although the era and place was different, my UK mother married a German migrant, and as a result there were many aspects of the story, their relationship, wider family acceptance and societal attitudes that felt very relatable to me.  

But even without that, this film has a bit of something for everyone I think.  Bert's story is definitely a lesson in stoicism and keeping on going without complaint.  2019 has been a stressful year for me, and that was a helpful message for me to hear.  The couple face some very difficult times, and not everything works out rosily in the end - but it works out, and that is life.  

Some great vintage costumes too!

****.5

Sunset

Seen at the Capitol Theatre, Melbourne

Cecil says: Sunset was not what I was expecting. I knew it was set in Budapest  before the first world war so it would have an end-of-empire feel to it, and I don’t really think I wanted a Merchant Ivory style take on the period, but it was a bit disappointing not to have any magnificent street or river scapes that made it clear it was filmed in Budapest itself.

In fact by the end of the film, I wasn’t even sure that the whole thing wasn’t filmed in some studio or other somewhere in Europe.

We saw it at the magnificently refurbished Capitol Theatre in Melbourne, along with at least 500 others, as part of the wonderful Melbourne International Film Festival.

The new interior there is extraordinary, with amazing LED lights a 21^st century echo of the lighting system they had when the Capitol first opened in the silent movie era in the 1920s. The sound system is also superb, muffling the noise of conversation among the audience but making what happened on the screen perfectly audible. I have to say, though, that I have never been a fan of surround sound, so the voices behind the protagonist coming out of speakers high up towards the back of the auditorium just doesn’t work for me in a cinema, especially when I sit at the back and they come somewhere to my left rather than behind.

And sound is somehow vital to this movie. We focus almost exclusively on Irisz, the daughter of the Leiters, who ran an exclusive hat shop in Budapest, but who died when she was an infant in a blaze that destroyed the premises. But so much of the dialogue – especially from the men around her – comes in grunts or dark, whispered words into ears, whether hers or others around her.

It’s a slightly weird effect along with the long silent looks at her face, with eyes gazing out into nowhere, but giving us the viewer no real clue as to what she might be thinking or feeling.

In fact, by the end of the film, although Irisz is the focus throughout (and it’s for over two hours, by the way), we don’t truly know much about her or what makes her tick. Or even what she truly is.

The final scene in the WW1 trenches is gloomy and miserable, but then she appears, staring again but wordless, like a ghost. And I was left wondering if the whole point was that she was a spirit, never really there but appearing when terrible things are about to unfold.

When a film is this full of symbolism, it can be hard to get inside the story (so unlike Merchant Ivory). There is a storyline, as she returns to Budapest trying to get a job at her parents’ old shop, as the new owner works towards its 30^th anniversary (in his hands?), and we know we are building towards revelations about her family and about the nobility and its slow fall towards oblivion in this part of Europe.

I enjoyed the film but it did feel rather long, and if it hadn’t been at the Capitol, I might well have drifted off in some of the slower parts.

***

Bea says: I am writing this review some time after Cecil did his, and I have to say what I remember most of this experience is the wonderful Capitol Theatre, rather than the film, which is a fairly slow moving, languid period piece with a dreamlike ending.  I don't mind this genre, but the story didn't really stay with me at all, and I had to reread Cecil's review to remember it at all.

**.5

The Third Wife

Seen at the Theatre Royal, Castlemaine

Cecil says: Nice to get time on a lazy Sunday to go to our local cinema the Theatre Royal in Castlemaine. The Third Wife has that slow, sensuous pace that can make me drift off to sleep, though, especially on a lazy Sunday, and I think I did momentarily drop off a couple of times through the film.

Set in 19^th century Vietnam, this is a closely observed social commentary on the lives of women at the time. We focus mainly on May, the 14 year old who is married to a man who already has two other wives, and she goes on a journey of self-discovery and into womanhood while still enjoying playing with the younger daughters of one of the other wives.

We don’t really know anything of the husband and he only appears occasionally, to make love with one or other of his wives or to try to broker a deal over the marriage of his wayward son (to the first wife).

But we don’t need to know really. This is a film about women, their relationships between themselves and their tentative forays into letting their own passions surface.

Slow-paced it certainly is, with long periods of no sound track at all, but close-up camera angles on the intimacies and banality of every day life. We watch a chicken being bled to death slowly, we see May fainting while she gives birth very painfully; there are long slow pourings of tea into cups and water into trays; and the old grandfather appears now and then, seemingly a gentler soul than the husband, though I didn’t quite get the symbolism of his clothing, or his wisdoms, or indeed whether he might have been blind…

But there is a definite message that being a woman in this kind of world is not something to be yearned for, and indeed one of the younger girls says rather pointedly that when she grows up she wants to be a man… which links in possibly to the very last scene of the film, but I won’t do a spoiler for that, and I may be misreading her final actions…

***

Bea says: I have been interesting in Asian cinema since that run of cross-over successes in the 1990s (Raise the Red Lantern etc).  The beautiful cinematography combined with the slow pace is more reminiscent of reading a novel than watching a film for me.  It's the perfect genre for a Sunday afternoon.

I enjoyed this film as a visual experience - it's visually stunning, and I enjoyed seeing women's lives documented, although their lives of servitude (either as servants or as daughters and wives) were very difficult indeed.

***.5