The screening on Saturday 9th December featured a special dance performance. Celebrating the intoxication of dancing feet, Barbican Theatre presented a new dance featuring Tap, Flamenco and Street dance – the footwork led the audience through the bar and into the cinema – toward the brilliance of Powell and Pressburgers’ Red Shoes.

Borrowing from the fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen, The Red Shoes turns away from its gothic (and gory) origins and transplants the story into the world of ballet. A theatre in Covent Garden is about to show a production from Ballet Lermontov, a company led by the enigmatic, world-weary Boris Lermontov (played by Anton Walbrook). Dance and music students, having queued for hours, eagerly pile into the cheap seats. Among them is composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring). As the students cheer on their music professor, who has written the score for Lermontov’s new ballet, Hearts on Fire, Julian realises that the music being played, is his. 

Powell and Pressburger are establishing plot and motive. The camera sears into the face of a young woman, watching the ballet intently. Socialite and ballerina Victoria Page (Moira Shearer) already dances professionally, but has her eye on the next rung of the ladder. At an after-party, she introduces herself to Lermontov and gets herself an invite to the next rehearsal. In a fit of rage, Craster hastily writes a letter to Lermontov regarding the music. The next day, he interrupts Lermontov’s breakfast to ask for the letter back. Instead, Craster is offered a job, coaching the orchestra. He takes it.

A great film about the precarious nature of showbusiness, The Red Shoes brutally illustrates Ballet Lermontov’s revolving-door policy, when the prima ballerina announces that she is engaged. Lermontov fires her on the spot. One cannot, in his view, commit to both art and love. Victoria and Julian meet with the impresario and his team. There is a new ballet on the books, a female principal is required, and the score needs work. Within moments, The Red Shoes intertwines the lives of Lermontov, Page and Craster. 

The Red Shoes takes us from backstage to the best seat in the house. As the company perform the new ballet, Powell and Pressburger play with scale and perspective: we move from a panoramic view of the stage, to intensely-lit close-ups. The mise-en-scene, exuberant in three-strip Technicolour, is styled along expressionist lines. The outline of the ballet is simple enough: an ambitious young girl is offered a pair of enchanted red ballet shoes. She will become, on wearing them, a great dancer. As Shearer’s character jumps into the shoes in that iconic moment, she realises, too late, that she is doomed to dance forever. The red shoes never get tired. 

The ballet – a show within a show – is a hallmark of Powell and Pressburger’s style. We follow Shearer through giddying changes of scenery, into a dream-like, kaleidoscopic state. Art forms collide: hand-painted screens interlink with super-imposed images of a crashing sea roaring over the floodlights, contrasting the tradition of theatre with the innovation of early cinema. As the fantasy becomes a nightmare, the dancer’s psychological torment is actualised by ghoulish creatures surrounding her. It is a nod to the roots of Hans Christian Andersen’s stories; a primal, indecipherable terror. The emotive, Oscar-winning score from Brian Easdale completes the concept Powell and Pressburger wanted to articulate as film-makers. The Red Shoes not only explores how cinema can represent psychology, but its drawing of female characters is a real step forward. The lure of fame, the sweat and toil that goes into making an ‘effortless’ performance, Shearer’s heroine does not evoke the genteel post-war world of high culture: she is unashamedly pushing herself to the very top. The jewelled coronet she wears to parties isn’t so much a declaration as a disguise. Page may have started the film as a society belle, but while she has elegance, she’s also got grit. As the film enters its final act, Page will have to decide between art and love. It is an impossible choice.

For all its pyrotechnics, The Red Shoes works so well as a dance film because of its authenticity. Shearer was already an experienced ballerina by the time she was cast as Page. The two male dancers who work with her also represent the best in the business. Leonide Massine (playing Grischa Ljubov) was a principal at the Ballets Russes by the time he was 19, and Robert Helpmann (Ivan Boleslawsky) also had a background in dance, but is best remembered for scaring generations of children as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’s Child Catcher. It is this grounding, in technique and discipline, that makes the heightened emotional moments so disturbing. There are elements of horror and spectacle within this film, and much of The Red Shoes feels like a fever dream. But the organisation of ideas: a building sense of dread, the giddying highs and humiliating lows of success and failure in the arts, means that the film is more finely tuned to our waking thoughts. 

As The Red Shoes reaches its ambivalent conclusion, the uneasiness that lingers feels like it should belong to a more contemporary film. It is Powell and Pressburger’s refusal to make easily-defined films that has given their body of work such longevity. The Red Shoes escapes the confines of a traditionally-told story, and takes us into a psychological narrative of unresolved ambition and unnamed desire.

Reviewed by Helen Tope

Cinema Unbound: The Creative Worlds of Powell and Pressburger is a major UK-wide celebration of one of the greatest and most enduring filmmaking partnerships. Supported by National Lottery and BFI Film Audience Network. bfi.org.uk/powell-and-pressburger

The post Event Review: The Red Shoes appeared first on Plymouth Arts Cinema | Independent Cinema for Everyone | located at Arts University Plymouth..

Loosely based on the family featured in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, this later-generation story begins in 2006, and owes as much to cinematic references as Waugh’s examination of Britain’s class structure: think Kubrick’s chancing hero Barry Lyndon meets The Talented Mr Ripley.

Director Emerald Fennell uses her own experiences to depict life at an Oxford college. A scholarship boy, Oliver Quick (played by Barry Keoghan), arrives at the university, very much a fish out of water. His first introduction to the privileged side of Oxford is when his classmate arrives 20 minutes late for their tutorial. Farleigh Start (an excellent Archie Madekwe) is the cousin of Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi), heir to Saltburn.

A chance encounter has put Oliver in Felix’s orbit. As Oliver begins to integrate himself into Felix’s group, the film notes how the air around them is a little headier: the insults are more cutting; the Jagerbombs at the pub, eye-wateringly expensive. Fennell, a graduate of Greyfriars, casts a satirical eye on university life for those who will never need the benefit of a university education. Oliver – so conscientious he ploughs through the entire summer reading list when his tutor hasn’t even read half of it – starts to learn that the set of rules that got him through the college gates simply don’t apply to Felix. Tall, classically handsome but sensitive, Felix takes an interest in Oliver, especially when Oliver reveals his tragic home life. An alcoholic mother, and a drug-addicted father who has recently died (the character’s background darkly mirrors Keoghan’s own), he is invited to spend the summer break at Saltburn.

The scenes at ancient, beautiful Saltburn – Oliver adjusting to life at the manor; gloriously sunny days by the pool with Felix and his sister, Venetia (Alison Oliver) – are overlaid with an indulgent early Noughties soundtrack. Bloc Party, Arcade Fire, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Girls Aloud drop you into a moment. Pre-Brexit, pre-Covid, surrounded by beautiful artefacts and second-rate Rubens, Fennell really sells us the dream. Coupled with the double-act that is Sir James and Elspeth Catton (Richard E Grant, Rosamund Pike playing the parents, and having the time of their lives), Oliver can easily be forgiven for having his head turned. Held at arms’ length by Farleigh, and the Catton’s butler, Duncan (a superb Paul Rhys), Oliver is welcomed in by the rest of the family. His sexual longing for Felix – a source of tension between the friends – begins to spill over, and (getting a little too comfortable) Oliver finds a more amenable partner in Venetia. Fennell reveals the third act as Elspeth throws Oliver an extravagant birthday party: the gothic tones, in the shade of a blistering summer, now come to the fore. The Dionysian delights start to leave a bitter taste.

With the release of Saltburn, there have been criticisms aimed at Fennell: can someone so immersed in this social class really view it with any disparity? But it is in the attention to detail that Saltburn really comes to life. For example, the breakfast scene, where Oliver has to be told how breakfast works for the upper classes (eggs served separately); and the surprising equation that the bigger the stately home, the smaller the telly. Oliver’s confusion at everyone crowding around a tiny telly in the library is shared by the audience. The social satire is perfectly pitched, because it’s delivered by someone ‘in the club’. As the daughter of jeweller Theo Fennell; born into wealth and privately educated, Emerald shouldn’t excel at the nuanced observation and empathy required for film-making. But the sharp eye, the survival instinct: Fennell aligns herself far more closely with Oliver than Felix or Venetia. Even as the film reaches its darkest phase (and this is a film that does not shy away from controversy), the Cattons find themselves overwhelmed by events; Quick naturally rises to the occasion.

Saltburn merges riotous comedy with acidic, noir satire. The blending of genres largely succeeds, but the resolution – the tying-up of loose ends – feels messy and incoherent. However, it’s not enough of a fault to undo the rest of the film. The performances, across the board, are sensational. Keoghan’s amoral anti-hero pulls us in, and then reviles us. Rosamund Pike as silly but glamorous Elspeth nearly steals the show with her one-liners. Paul Rhys’ watchful butler is far from dispassionate: his range of emotion provides Saltburn with much-needed depth.

While not a perfect film, Saltburn grabs your attention and refuses to let go. Fennell’s portrait of the outsider is just as compelling as her depiction of a class frozen in time. Fennell answers her critics by demonstrating that she is able to see both sides of the coin. It feels like this subject isn’t fully done for her, either. Saltburn initially dazzles, the visuals entice, but the cracks soon appear when everyone stops having fun. There is a better film to be made, once Fennell decides it’s time to revisit.

Saltburn is showing at Plymouth Arts Cinema from Friday 24th – Wednesday 29th November with a Bringing in Baby Screening on Thursday 30 November. 

Reviewed by Helen Tope

The post Film Review: Saltburn – “grabs your attention and refuses to let go” appeared first on Plymouth Arts Cinema | Independent Cinema for Everyone | located at Arts University Plymouth..

Tara (Mia KcKenna Bruce), Em (Enva Lewis) and Skye (Lara Peake) are smart and confident teenagers let loose for a week. They prove their mettle early on by wrangling a room upgrade at their resort, and putting down a chump who dares to chat them up. Underneath the bravado though, they are still children. They play football, eat cheesy chips, mess around, and at crucial moments, are faced with the impossibility of putting terrible events into words.

The film is a super-realistic depiction of their earnest quest to have sex, free from the constraints of home. The director also provides vivid material that would be suitable for a year 11 PSHE lesson on sexual consent.

The mood at the start of the film is wholesome and playful. The genre demands of a disaster movie are present too, and for the first third of the film you are waiting for the bad thing to happen. Stakes are raised when one character reveals she is still a virgin. It is hopefully not a spoiler to say that bad things do happen. The skill of the director is that she takes us right there in forensic detail when they do.

This is a technically accomplished piece of film making – moods are communicated clearly through shaky cameras, high energy music from dubstep star Jakwob, the claustrophobic setting of the resort, and the crowded hedonism of the night club scene. Mia McKenna Bruce (Tee Taylor, in Tracey Beaker Returns) gives an outstanding big screen performance as Tara. She demonstrates a great range of feeling from elation to mute trauma. I also liked Shaun Thomas (Gerry Roberts, in Emmerdale) as ‘sexy clown’ Badger. His character is warm, respectful, yet also conflicted over his allegiances. 

Much of the action is rinsed through with torrents of alcohol, and if you are a parent you may start to wish these girls a good night’s sleep and some green vegetables. 

How to Have Sex is a thoughtful and sympathetic film from a talented team of millennial actors and crew about what really goes on in the negotiations around sex – where it occasionally goes right, and where it can go very wrong. For one of the characters, the ending of the film feels really just the beginning of her problems. It was a wise decision to keep the BBFC classification to 15. This means the post-GCSE pupils it depicts can watch along and engage with the issues shown. A must-see for teenagers, their parents, and anyone in between who is troubled by the power imbalances that persist between the genders six years after #metoo.

Bad Sex Writing Workshop with Laura Horton

Following the matinee screening of How to Have Sex on Saturday 18th November, Plymouth playwright Laura Horton led a special “Bad Sex” writing workshop. Taking inspiration from the idea that creativity flourishes when offered permission not to be perfect, Laura led us on a series of prompts to produce short fictional passages of deliberately bad erotica. Mine involved a runny fried egg and a knee-trembler under a Formica café table! The workshop was funny and liberating. 

Laura, the former Plymouth Laureate of Words, runs a Bad Sex Writing podcast, and has written for Vogue magazine about the cathartic effects of writing humorously about sex. In her article she says, “Ultimately, this sort of camaraderie makes sex less intimating – and makes us all feel less alone.”

Plymouth Arts Cinema would like to thank Laura for a wonderful and playful afternoon.

Find out more about Bad Sex Writing on Instagram @badsexwriting

How To Have Sex is screening at Plymouth Arts Cinema from Friday 17 – Thursday 23 November.

Reviewed by James Banyard

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Dear Reader, Subscriber, Cinemagoer, Friend,

I am writing this on the road in an electric car with producer Cairo Cannon, as we preview our road movie TYPIST ARTIST PIRATE KING before its theatrical release this Friday. We are handing the film over to you, the audience: a film is nothing without you – for by watching the film you complete it.

“A FILM IS NOTHING WITHOUT YOU – FOR BY WATCHING THE FILM YOU COMPLETE IT” As we navigate the roads, I ponder how the archive of a real woman – the artist and mental health survivor Audrey Amiss – has brought us to this point. How lucky I was to get a Wellcome Screenwriting Fellowship and become the first researcher to get such significant access to her fifty thousand wonderful sketches; her brilliant paintings; her erudite diaries; logbooks and scrapbooks.

But what kind of movie was I going to make? I didn’t feel a documentary was the right form. Audrey had left so many words behind – I wanted to make a film where she spoke for herself!

“AUDREY HAD LEFT SO MANY WORDS BEHIND — I WANTED TO MAKE A FILM WHERE SHE SPOKE FOR HERSELF”

Audrey loved to travel and rather saw herself as Don Quixote. And so, the idea of the road movie emerged, with Audrey going on a journey with her psychiatric nurse, Sandra Panza, in search of an art exhibition. Along the way, Audrey misidentifies many of the people she comes across as those from her past. This was something I drew from her real-life diaries – it enabled me to unfold Audrey’s past in the present without the need of flashbacks. Oh, and Audrey also gave me the title of the film; when I found her old passport, she had written as her occupation: Typist Artist Pirate King.

It was important to me that I made a film with comedy running through it, as Audrey Amiss was funny. She prided herself on her sense of humour. She wrote of returning from the hairdresser with her hair like Reggie Kray, she sent numerous letters to the Sherlock Holmes Society about her missing sock.

Every single person who collaborated on the film loved Audrey’s art and wanted passionately to bring Audrey to filmic life. Monica Dolan, playing the spirit of Audrey Amiss, is extraordinary and brings Audrey, a person pushed to the margins, to the very centre of the world. And Kelly Macdonald offers an incredible portrait of a nurse on the frontline – no longer able to move forward, though with Audrey’s help she does. Becoming friends, they help each other.

“EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO COLLABORATED ON THE FILM LOVED AUDREY’S ART AND WANTED PASSIONATELY TO BRING AUDREY TO FILMIC LIFE” The brilliant Gina McKee plays Audrey’s sister, Dorothy, who she met in her preparation for the film. (Dorothy got into trouble with her family for not taking a photo of herself with Gina!) The film is dedicated to Dorothy, who sadly died while we were editing. She was very happy that Audrey was going to get the recognition she and her mam Belle believed she deserved. And when Dorothy read the screenplay she wrote me a note, which touched me deeply: “Thank you for giving me my Audrey back.”

It also seems poignant that the Saturday of our opening weekend would have been Audrey’s 90th birthday – so I hope you will seek out TYPIST ARTIST PIRATE KING this weekend and discover and complete the film in your own way.

With love and respect to you all from the road, Carol

The post A Letter From Carol Morley, Director of Typist Artist Pirate King appeared first on Plymouth Arts Cinema | Independent Cinema for Everyone | located at Arts University Plymouth..

The oil wells not only bring work and prosperity for the Osages and white men, they also bring criminals and those who seek to rob them by manipulation, stealth and murder.

William King Hale, played by Robert De Niro, is shown to be a friend of the Osages and knows about their customs and even speaks their language. He is the uncle of Ernest Burkhart, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who takes Ernest under his wing when he returns from serving in the First World War.

Ernest makes a living as a taxi driver and he falls in love with a regular passenger, Osage Mollie Kyle, played by Lily Gladstone. Hale is pleased with and encourages this relationship, as she is in line to inherit a share of the oil-rich mineral rights on the land.

With his younger brother, Byron played by Scott Shepherd, Ernest carries out armed robberies in the area, and is seduced by the power of money beyond anything else. Once married to Mollie, in a combined Osage/Catholic ceremony, Ernest is persuaded by Hale to kill off members of her family to inherit their wealth.

Ernest and his fellow murderous conspirators are relatively inept, yet the local law enforcement officers and the two local doctors, brothers Dr James and David Shoun, turn a blind-eye. As the murder toll escalates the Osage are forced to seek help from Washington and the Bureau of Investigation.eventually comes to their aid.

Hale and Ernest are arrested, and Ernest is torn between testifying for or against his Uncle. Will he make a choice to support his uncle or will his love for Mollie win out?

Leonardo DiCaprio as the gullible and morally challenged Ernest, Lily Gladstone as the steadfast and savvy Mollie, and Robert De Niro as the duplicitous Hale make for perfect casting.

The cinematography of the vast beautiful landscape contrasted with the congested township gives a real sense of being immersed in the Wild West of the 1920s, where the attitudes of the old west are still alive and kicking.

Based on true events, under Martin Scorsese’s direction this is an epic story that skillfully shows how Hale uses his power to control and manipulate both the criminal underworld and the local authorities. Ernest is just one of his puppets that he uses to steal the property rights of the Osage, despite his outward appearance of being an advocate and friend of the people.

In the past you knew who the enemy was, says one of the nation’s leaders, now with their new wealth anyone can be an enemy. Killers of the Flower Moon chillingly shows how a localised genocide of a people is perpetuated using stealth, rather than an outright attack, and as such presents a microcosm of how indigenous people were regarded and robbed in the USA.

Killers of the Flower Moon is screening at Plymouth Arts Cinema from friday 3 – Saturday 11 November.

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Filmed by Dylan Howitt, Allan explains the painstaking process of collecting, threading and weaving nettles into fabric, while recounting his first encounter with the prickly plant. He remembers falling into a bush of nettles as a kid, and the sensation of being stung left an impression that ran deeper than the initial burn.

The film follows Allan into his local woods as the artist seeks more materials to work with. Nettles, of course, are everywhere. “They find you, rather than the other way round” remarks Brown. We watch as Allan collects plants and strips the fibres, turning them into threads. His aim is to have enough to make a full-length dress – to do this he will need at least 25 feet of material. Howitt’s commitment to recording the project is equal to Allan’s: it takes Brown five years just to get to this point.

The Nettle Dress finds itself caught between tradition and innovation – “hedgerow couture” is a contemporary concept, although harnessing Nature to make our clothes is anything but new. Allan’s experience as a textile artist comes into play: his planned design is a simple gown, based on something the Viking population would have worn. Allan gets the idea of a dress, specifically a fairy tale dress, after reading the Hans Christian Andersen story The Wild Swans. A tale of reversing enchantment, Allan shows no signs of wanting to be released from the spell nettles have cast over his life.

As this is a process that, by its nature, cannot be rushed, the film’s narrative unfolds with a deliberate, zen-like approach. When Allan wanders in search of more nettles, the beautiful pin-sharp photography on the plants and wildlife nudges us to look more closely, more carefully. Allan’s appreciation of the woods, their ever-changing landscape through the seasons, is eye-opening. These woods are not especially picturesque – the burned out tyres are an added feature – but the joy found in them by Allan and his adorable labrador Bonnie, who accompanies him on every foraging session, really translates on film.

As the documentary progresses, we learn that The Nettle Dress is not just about the object itself, but what the object represents. Allan, only just recovering from his father’s death, learns that his 45-year-old wife, Alex, has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. She is given months to live. Allan is faced with the unimaginable, and having to keep a family with four children together as well as himself. His nettle project, here in its very early, undefined stages, continues. Allan gathers and spins. Having another point of focus, he recognises, as a gift.

The Nettle Dress is, at its core, a moving meditation on grief and loss. The nettles, in a neat, full-circle metaphor, transform from their prickly, stay-away-from-me roots into a symbol of protection and closeness. Howitt’s film effortlessly layers meaning despite its running time of 60 minutes; its brevity instead becomes a mirror of the intensive process Allan undergoes, both as an artist and as a husband and father.

The film’s melancholy undercurrent stops The Nettle Dress from veering into self-congratulatory notes. Allan cheerfully announces that, given the choice between homespun and manufactured clothing, he’d pop down the High Street for something comfortable to wear. But this is more personal than just an art project: he comments on how the woven nettle fabric is resilient, despite being from such delicate, fine threads. Held up to the light, the fabric forms a matrix that feels protective and enveloping. It is unrecognisable from its raw state, but it isn’t the harnessing of Nature that the film truly reveres; it’s the possibilities – untapped, unexpected – that are actually celebrated in Allan’s work. Embracing change and difficulty, The Nettle Dress encourages us to look at the prickly side of Nature, and life itself, from an alternative perspective.

Watch The Nettle Dress at Plymouth Arts Cinema from Saturday 28th October – Wednesday 1st November.

Reviewed by Helen Tope

The post Film Review: The Nettle Dress – “not just about the object itself, but what it represents” appeared first on Plymouth Arts Cinema | Independent Cinema for Everyone | located at Arts University Plymouth..

We enter Daliland from the perspective of gallery assistant, James (played by Christopher Briney). It is New York,1974, and his boss has asked him to deliver a suitcase stuffed with money to the St. Regent Hotel. This money is for Gala, Dali’s wife. A fearsome, intimidating presence, and in charge of the Dali finances, she only deals in cash. James enters the hotel suite and into a room packed with revellers, Dali is holding court. His next conceptual work, he boasts, will be to construct “the world’s biggest penis”. Dali is, of course, up against a deadline to fill the walls of James’ gallery with more sell-able prints and lithographs. James’ good looks not only get him through the door, he catches the eye of Dali muse, Ginesta (Suki Waterhouse) and the attention of Dali himself, who asks James to assist him through the next three weeks. 

Dali is not only a cultural icon by this point, he’s big business. His prices are going through the roof, and demand for new work is hard to keep up with. The partying at the St. Regent is rightly legendary, but it’s throwing Dali off course. Harron takes us back in time to the beginnings of Dali’s most important paintings, and compares this period of productivity to where Dali is in later life: not out of ideas, but his inability to follow through is frustrating everyone around him. It also becomes clear to James there is an issue of quality control. Dali is signing anything put in front of him; prints sold at lithograph prices; photocopies passed off as the real thing. The man who prides himself on being an artistic enigma is churning out material that has little or nothing to do with original work. 

In telling the story of an anarchic, eccentric artist, Daliland is far too reserved. Ezra Miller captures his spirit best, as the younger Dali, and it would be a different film if Harron had decided to lean into this era of his biography instead of the later years. Entranced by the full force of Gala’s personality, the younger Dali is bold, emotive and luminous with inspiration. By comparison, the time we spend with the older Dali lacks energy and drive. It’s all the more strange when we consider Harron’s back catalogue: American Psycho, I Shot Andy Warhol and The Notorious Bettie Page. These are films at full throttle; the idea that Dali has taken his foot off the accelerator is a neat metaphor, but it’s not enough to sustain the entire film. The scenes where we return to Dali’s youth, with the older artist looking on, have a sensitivity to them, but for the most part, Daliland is told in a fairly conventional structure, beginning and ending with the artist’s death in 1985. It’s questionable whether Daliland takes enough risks with its story-telling. 

Another issue is the lack of biographical detail: we learn that Dali has a deeply problematic relationship with sex, but it’s never revealed why. A quick search on Google confirms that Dali’s introduction to sex was his father showing him explicit photos of people with advanced venereal disease; conflating sex, death and decay into one horrifying psychological moment for the young Dali. It’s a biographical note that explains both the art and the artist, but it’s missing from the film. It unfortunately gives Ben Kingsley, as Dali, very little to grasp onto. Kingsley skilfully portrays Dali’s changeable moods; the charismatic, confessional artist; and the near-hysterical hypochondriac. He relies on Harron’s close-ups to deliver much of his performance. The intensity of the eyes draw you in; Kingsley’s Dali is forever searching and analysing.

There are further bright spots: Barbara Sukowa’s Gala is excellent; Mark McKenna and Zachary Nachbar-Seckel have great fun with their cameos as Alice Cooper and Jeff Fenholt. Harron does capture an essence of the Seventies. The gathering of artists and muses in the sweet spot where bohemia meets opulence; great tunes, even better clothes and hard drugs served on a silver platter. The preservation of glamour, staving off the visible signs of old age, becomes more poignant as the film progresses. As Dali’s hand betrays a tell-tale tremor, the confirmation that death cannot be held at bay forever, genuinely frightens him. It is fear that motivates the golden couple: Gala’s terror of returning to poverty sees her wailing about being poor while standing in a hotel suite costing $20,000 a month. Daliland illustrates the tensions in being not just an artist, but a bankable name. A gallery owner whispers to a buyer that Dali’s prices have increased ten-fold: people are buying his work as an investment. Dali’s still producing work worth talking about, but the critical response is muted: his lifestyle and celebrity have overshadowed the creativity. Despite the high prices, what Dali makes never seems to be enough: the cost of living at Casa Dali is giddying. 

Daliland nudges us into asking questions about authenticity, but it is the multiplicity of Dali: that provokes: among the characters and ploys, is there even a real Dali? It’s a debate that is, appropriately, never resolved. Even James’ relationship with the artist is thrown into doubt, nothing is quite what it seems. This final, uneasy note is finely-judged; Harron and Walsh avoid the temptation of a rounder, neater ending. No matter how close we did – or didn’t get – to Dali, there’s always another layer to peel away. The artist, and the man, remain at large. 

Daliland is screening at Plymouth Arts Cinema from 20th – 26th October

Reviewed by Helen Tope

The post Film Review: Daliland – “The intensity of the eyes draw you in” appeared first on Plymouth Arts Cinema | Independent Cinema for Everyone | located at Arts University Plymouth..

The key player in this Parisian ménage à trois is Tomas, a German film director, married to artist Martin who refuses to dance with him at a wrap party for his latest film ( the eponymous Passages). Tomas connects instead with teacher Agathe and they spend the night together. There is no hint of deceit here – on his return to their home the following morning Tomas is startlingly upfront with Martin, who dismisses the assignation as a not-unexpected post-production peccadillo. But having found a surprising connection with Agathe, played by Adèle Exarchopoulos from Blue Is The Warmest Colour, Tomas soon reveals he is falling in love and moves his belongings out. But he appears to see no reason why this should require severing his ties with the diffident Martin, played by Ben Whishaw whose performance, as usual, is never less than compelling. I was fortunate to have seen him in Mercury Fur in the Drum here in Plymouth in 2005 and have been captivated by his understated talent ever since.

In spite of his reckless betrayal of both, Tomas manages to repeatedly inveigle his way back in, like the proverbial bad (but beautiful) penny much as water finds its way through a sandbag. And in the face of the flood Martin and Agathe find themselves impotent (metaphorically not literally, given the film’s many and much-discussed sex scenes) as he ricochets between the two.

Franz Rogowski is utterly convincing as someone in whose face it might prove very difficult to slam the door. At first his persistence is charming, he reminded me of the subject of the James song Laid: ‘moved out of the house, so you moved next door, I locked you out, so you cut a hole in the wall…’ But once a pregnancy is added to the mix and the stakes are raised, Agathe and Martin begin to recognise the havoc Tomas’ self-absorbed search for connection is wreaking and the necessity of escaping his manipulative orbit. Tomas becomes jealous of his husband’s connection with a new partner and is also unable to exert his not inconsiderable charm over Agathe’s bewildered and sceptical parents. His craving for intimacy on his own terms means the angles of this particular triangle begin to shift and the film offers no route to a happy ending, but the more time we spend with Tomas, the more it’s not certain that he actually wants one.

Reviewed by Jemima Laing

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