Talking Films: February Meet Up
This month, there’s some clear themes throughout our playlist. First, many of the selections below are tipped to do well in the current awards season, while others are classic award winners that have to be seen!
Relationships and unlikely couplings thread through many of our choices this month, including the groundbreaking It’s A Sin, unfolding throughout the month on Channel 4 and All4. Both this and Documentary Welcome to Chechnya are on our list as part of LGBTQ+ History Month, which runs throughout February.
Must-see TV
1. Series based on more or less acclaimed literature, (or how to effectively replace dialogue with love making)
Nominated for 4 EMMYS (Lead Actor, Director – Lenny Abrahamson for episode 5, Casting, as well as Writing – Sally Rooney and Alice Birch for episode 3) back in September, it recently also scooped 2 Golden Globes nominations (Best Performance by an Actress in a Limited Series and Best Limited Series) and 3 Critics’ Choice Awards (Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Limited Series). But don’t wait to see if it will win in any of its latest nominations to discover this mesmerising and as real as it gets love story between 2 no more teenagers, not yet adults. Spot on (notwithstanding objections to its ending) adaptation of Sally Rooney’s acclaimed novel it stars the brave and beautiful Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones.
One of American Film Institute (AFI)’s TV Programmes of the Year this humongous, record-braking Netflix hit, also just scored 2 Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards nominations, for its charismatic, easy on the eyes Leading Man, Regé-Jean Page, and for its Ensemble (SAG’s equivalent to Best Series) of very talented ladies and gentlemen performers. Each and everyone of whom, along with the crisp dialogues, high-end production value, and the clever juxtaposition of anachronistic racial politics with anything but anachronistic gender politics of Regency-era England, elevate the source material of Julia Quinn’s literary series of steamy historic romances to new heights of sexy, escapism TV. Making this period dramedy a rare, prestige guilty pleasure.
2. LGBTQ+ and female troubles, then and now
Russel T Davies’ timely and timeless series about the effects of the AIDS epidemic on 5 friends living in London in the 80s, is full of joy, and life, and love, and glitter, and of lessons not learned, in the face of unspeakable, heartbreaking adversary and tragedy. It became All 4’s biggest box set hit ever and an absolute critics’ darling, so it sure to become one of 2021’s biggest Awards staples as well. It stars the exuberant young talents Olly Alexander, Lydia West, Callum Scott Howells, Omari Douglas and Nathaniel Curtis, along with an impressive group of supporting actors (Keeley Hawes, Shaun Dooley, Andria Doherty) and guest stars (Neil Patrick Harris, Stephen Fry). La!
I MAY DESTROY YOU- BBC iPLAYER
Created by and staring the intrepid Michaela Coel this is a groundbreaking series, unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. As it ponders the question of consent in the here and now of dating and relationships, balancing on the thin line between sexual liberation and sexual exploitation, it evolves into an innovative, “transgenre” drama, both visually and in terms of narrative construction, with an extraordinary, unexpected, bursting with emotions, thoughts and ideas final episode to boot. So it comes as no surprise that it has thus far scored 2 Critics’ Choice (Best Limited Series and Best Actress in a Limited Series) and 1 SAG (Best Actress in a Limited Series) nominations.
Omar Sy, heartwarming double bill
1. Series
This is is unanticipated: a re-imagining of gentleman thief Arsène Lupin’s mythos as orphaned teenager Assane Diop draws inspiration of Lupin’s feats to become, as an adult in modern day Paris, a brilliant gentleman thief himself, in order to avenge his father’s death. Fast paced, clever, stylish and sleek, while never losing sight of (at least) its main character’s emotions/motives, it’s a heist action drama, with a healthy sense of humor and an absolute delight of a leading man in Omar Sy. A purely fun escapism TV, in other words, that became one of Netflix’s biggest hits everywhere this past holiday season, and the first French series to break into the US top 10. Do yourself a favour and watch it in the original French audio with subtitles.
2. Film
UNTOUCHABLE (Intouchables)- AMAZON PRIME
It won the -French Oscar equivalent- Best Actor César Award for the ever a pleasure to behold, Omar Sy, back in 2012, while boasting numerous other wins and nominations (including both a BAFTA and a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film) around the world. Directed by Olivier Nakach and Eric Toledano it tells the story of the irresistible, unlikely friendship between a quadriplegic aristocrat and the young, black man he hires to be his caregiver, becoming one of the biggest ever international, artistic and commercial triumphs of the French cinema in the process. Do yourself a favour and (re)discover it. It will make you laugh, it will make you cry and make you fall in love with -even lockdown- life all over again.
Eye-opening Documentaries
1. Film
WELCOME TO CHECHNYA – BBC iPLAYER
There is not enough space in this post to list the awards that this David France’s urgent, timely documentary has worthily gathered thus far in International Film Festivals around the world, including the 22nd Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival, where yours truly, (Sydenham Arts Film Programmer Ioanna Papageorgiou), had the fortune and the honour to see it, vote for it as Best Documentary in the International Competition and review it as a jury member of FIPRESCI – the International Federation of Film Critics. Disclosing the socking purging of the LGBTQ+ community in modern day Chechnya, ingeniously using Deep Face techniques, it is now well on its way to Oscar Glory, already shortlisted in 2 categories: Best Documentary Feature and Best Special Effects. You have to see it to believe it.
2. Series
British, renowned the world over, photographer, Rankin, explores 2020, searching for the professional, semiprofessional and amateur photographers and their photographs capturing the spirit of a most peculiar year in pictures. In this alternative look back, told over 6 episodes, each exploring a different theme (Empathy, Family, Nature, Fun etc) Rankin is joined by celebrity guests to pick out the best of the bunch, at the same time sharing valuable tips and advise on the art of photography in layman’s terms.
Must-see Feature Films
1. Past and present Awards champions
In last month’s Talking Films we discussed David Fincher’s “Mank” that is already making a splash in the current awards season (one of AFI Movies of the Year, it also grabbed 6 Golden Globes nominations and a SAG Best Actor nomination for Garry Oldman), and which tells the story of the haunted genius of Herman J Mankiewicz particularly when he was writing his Oscar wining screenplay of “Citizen Kane”. This month we invite you to (re)examine the real thing. AKA the product of Mank’s labours directed by the legendary Orson Welles into a visually stunning, film classic that routinely tops “Best Films Ever Made” lists anytime, anywhere, even though it infamously won only that one Oscar for its candid portrayal of a life under the spotlight.
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE- BBC iPLAYER
Arguably one of the very rare cases where the film is better than the book it was based on: the beautiful, elegiac, yet quite wordy towards its end, novel of the same name by Ann Rice, who also wrote the screenplay, improving on her original work. This gorgeous, cinematic meditation on love lost (and consequently mortality) via the “birth”, rise and fall of an alternative family of vampires through the aeons, won, among many other accolades on both sides of the Atlantic, 2 BAFTAS (Best Cinematography and Best Production Design). Directed by the great, still underappreciated Britt, Neil Jordan, and staring Tom Cruise in one of his best, unusual, edgier and darkest performances, Brad Pitt just as he was discovering his serious acting chops and Kirsten Dunst in her jaw-dropping debut as a hundreds years old soul trapped in an 11 years old body, it’s a film that hasn’t aged a bit.
NOBODY KNOWS I’M HERE (Nadie Sabe Que Estoy Aquí)- NETFLIX
This hidden in Netflix’s vast film catalogue gem won Best New Narrative Director at the Tribeca Film Festival 2020 for its Chilean director and co-writer Gaspar Antillo and it will leave you speechless in a state of wonder. Almost speechless itself as it tells its simple, yet deep story not through its sparse dialogues, but through its pregnant silences and the hauntingly beautiful singing of its ever heard, but never publicly seen antihero, Memo. In the role of the later, Jorge Garcia, the American, but of Cuban and Chilean descent actor and stand-up comedian of TV’s -cult classic- “Lost” and “Hawaii Five-O” fame, shines with an inward, esoteric performance, except from when he bursts out the screen actually singing Angelo’s famous songs. Make sure you watch it in the original Spanish with subtitles for the best viewing experience.
2. Soulful animations
SPIRITED AWAY (Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi) – NETFLIX
Where were you when this Berlin Film Festival’s Golden Bear, BAFTA and Oscar winner caught unawares young and adult film-lovers alike, spiriting us away into a hidden, terribly wonderful suburban world of gods and monsters, spirits and witches, while introducing us to the boundless imagination of Japan’s great Hayao Miyazaki’s fearless, animated cinematic universe? How did you feel? What did you think? Can you put it into words? Can you find the worlds? Here is your chance to experience again this miracle of a film, remind yourself, and try.
Pixar’s latest that debuted in the UK at the BFI London Film Festival last October for the lucky few that caught it on the big screen before its worldwide Christmas premiere online, has already, not surprisingly been named one of AFI’s Movies of the Year and secured a Golden Globe nomination for Best Animation Film. As music teacher and jazz aficionado Joe, voiced by Jamie Foxx, is unexpectedly trapped into The Great Before – the incredible place where new souls are born, this film works its way into, well… your soul as a healing balm. At least until its not universally accepted as successful ending. Oh well, nobody is perfect.