24FPS @ Raindance: Youth V Gov

Dir: Christi Cooper

Even with COP26 happening right now, it doesn’t seem that enough focus is being put on the man made climate change that is already befalling our planet, and which all indications say is about to get catastrophically worse. Christi Cooper’s documentary takes a look at group of 21 young people in the US who have elected to try and do something radical about it, by suing the US government to claim that their action in supporting the fossil fuel industry, while knowing the effects it is having on the climate, infringes their right to life, liberty and property.

The film’s greatest asset is these young people, aged between 11 and 22 at the outset of the case. All of them are informed, charismatic advocates for the case. We see this both in events surrounding the various court dates during the case, and in some frankly ridiculous footage from depositions, where opposing lawyers badger them with questions that should be reserved for climate experts. We also get to see some of the details of how climate change is affecting the plaintiffs right now, from extended wildfire seasons threatening farmland, to hurricanes and floods all but destroying homes. In their downtime, we see how these young people become close, their bond among themselves and with their lead counsel seeming to strengthen their resolve when the case gets challenging.

As a film, Youth V Gov is resolutely standard in form, cutting between observed footage of trial prep, talking heads stuff be it with the kids or with experts, and laying out the history of the US government's knowledge of, and action to exacerbate, climate change. It’s informative, but the history aspect is rather dry in its presentation. Spending time with the plaintiffs is often engaging, but that gets repetitive, as do the arguments the film is making, important as they are. Cooper hammers home the point over and over again, which has the peculiar effect of making more than a few sequences feel like a pre-credits summing up. This is perhaps the influence of the case on the film; as much as the lawyers want to make their case in court, Youth V Gov ends up serving as that case in miniature, and there are several closing arguments made.

Juliana Vs United States has the potential to be a massively important case as well as (as we see during the credits) an inspiring one, but Youth V Gov gives it rather standard issue treatment.

★★★

Youth V Gov is available on Curzon Home Cinema until midnight on November 1st

24FPS @ Raindance: Patchwork

Dir: Petros Charalambous

As one of the leads in Yorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth and Alps, Angeliki Papoulia was one of the faces of the so-called Greek Weird Wave of cinema in the late 00’s and early 2010s. She followed Lanthimos into his English language debut, The Lobster, but otherwise has remained in the Greek (and here the Cypriot) film industry.

Papoulia plays Chara, a housewife in her 40s with a dull but comfortable job, a nice husband (Andreas C. Tselepos), and a six-year-old daughter. Outwardly, her life looks close to ideal, but Chara is depressed, worried she is a bad mother. Things get shaken up when Melina (Joy Rieger), the teenage daughter of a new colleague, asks to do work experience with Chara and the older woman begins to see herself as a surrogate mother.

Patchwork rests pretty much entirely on Angeliki Papoulia’s performance, and in that respect, it’s a great success. Much of the work she has to do here is about things that are, for a long time, unspoken to the other characters—the doubts she has about having another child with her husband, her fractured relationship with her mother, and the way this plays into how she sees Melina. Papoulia is excellent at all this, indicating these elements to the audience while Chara is visibly trying to hide them from those around her. She gets to the meanings beneath the film’s often on-the-nose dialogue: long before she explains it to Melina, we can see in how she treats the younger woman that what she’s really doing when giving her advice is essentially talking to herself at Melina’s age.

This is the weakness of the screenplay; as much as Papoulia is able to make them play, scenes later in the film often simply explain out loud everything we’ve been reading perfectly well from her performance. Melina isn’t written with quite the same depth, but Joy Reiger (though visibly older than her character), manages to give some life to her beyond the stereotype of an alienated 16-year-old. Melina’s interest in patchwork quilting gives the film its title, but there’s also a sense here that the title Patchwork is meant to be about the way people stitch their adult lives together; the parts don’t always match perfectly, and she doesn’t always like the way that some of them feel, but Chara pulls those pieces together into some kind of whole. That’s where the film is at its best, and Papoulia’s performance, as is so often the case, makes it worth seeing all by itself. 

★★★½

Patchwork screens at 3:10 on October 31st at the Genesis Cinema, and online at Curzon Home Cinema from November 1st-3rd

24FPS @ LFF: Cop Secret

Dir: Hannes Thór Halldórsson

Not all filmmakers have always been in cinema. Some come from visual art, others from criticism, still others from completely different areas, but I have to say, a film directed by the goalkeeper for the Icelandic national football team isn’t something I saw coming. Nor, if I’d thought about it, would I necessarily have expected that film to be a spoof of 80s and 90s buddy cop actioners.

Cop Secret is, in the tradition of the best spoofs, a loving homage to the genre it’s riffing on. You’ve got the rival cops who have to become partners. In this case that’s loose canon Bussi (Auðunn Blöndal) and wealthy former model Hörður (Egill Einarsson). You’ve got the flamboyant villain with the diabolical plan; Björn Hlynur Haraldsson as Rikki and you’ve got supporting players like the boss who communicates almost entirely by shouting. The plot is drawn together from bits and pieces of earlier films, notably Die Hard With a Vengeance and Lethal Weapon, among others. The twist here, aside from the general absurdity, is that Bussi and Hörður are not just partners as cops, drawn together, they end up in a relationship. It’s important to note that, while Bussi has to come to terms with his sexuality, the fact of this relationship is never played for laughs. The film is absolutely sex-positive, embracing the sexuality of its characters without question. This isn’t to say that there isn’t fun to be had with their attraction, especially at the moment in the middle of a gunfight when the two brush hands; the first moment of electricity between them.

The performances are all entertaining, the whole cast going for the tone, but Björn Hlynur Haraldsson has a wonderful time as Rikki. He speaks almost entirely in English, which gives his performance the feel of a slightly low rent direct to video bad guy, offset by the fact his attempts at menacing dialogue become ever more convoluted, to the point that even his henchmen barely know what he’s saying. He also plays on villain clichés. When he threatens one henchman another reminds him that he can’t just start killing people “oh, just this one?”, comes the reply.

The action scenes, despite some terrible CGI, are a lot of fun, especially the kinetic car chase that opens the film (and which has a great gag midway through) and the aforementioned bank shootout. Unfortunately, that comes midway through, and the third act doesn’t quite have anything to match it. The parody may keep the bad guy’s plot from mattering too much, but given that this isn’t quite pitched at Naked Gun levels of silliness, it’s a shame it doesn’t engage a bit more on that level. Still, Cop Secret is a knowingly and mostly winningly ridiculous good time.

★★★½

24FPS @ BFI Flare 2021: Boy Meets Boy

Dir: Daniel Sanchez Lopez

On Harry’s (Matthew James Morrison) last day in Berlin, he meets Johannes (Alexis Koutsoulis) and they end up spending the day together, walking around the city, talking and connecting.

There are many great brief encounter movies—the Before series, Weekend, Brief Encounter itself—and Boy Meets Boy isn’t afraid of wearing the influence of all of them on its sleeve, but it cleaves closest to Before Sunrise and Sunset. There is a real sense of time being limited, and we know that at a certain point Harry has to move on, physically at least, to go home on an evening flight. As with those films, the time Harry and Johannes have together is largely filled with moments that might otherwise be mundane, but become meaningful both because of who they are with and the truncated timeline.

The most important thing with a film like this is to find two actors who have chemistry. From the first moment we see them together, dancing in a club and making out soon after, that’s not a problem, but it also carries over into the conversational scenes. There is an ease between Morrison and Koutsoulis that gives the film a loose, relaxed, flow. This certainly helps the chemistry in the sex scene (another where director Daniel Sanchez Lopez makes his influences, in this case Don’t Look Now and Out of Sight, obvious), but it’s felt just as much in the long series of conversations as the two wander around Berlin. The two talk about general life stuff, but things are most interesting when they get a bit deeper, where in a lighthearted way (Johannes’ assertion that “Everyone’s a cheese”) or in deeper conversations about sex and relationships, and what each is really looking for.

It’s easy to be swept along with this film, almost as if you’re tagging along with Harry and Johannes, the issue with it as a brief encounter film is that the stakes never feel especially high. For all the chemistry, the film seems to acknowledge immediately, and never change its mind about, what this is. The sense of longing that we are primed to feel both from the characters and in ourselves for them to be together, or the sadness that they can’t be, just never comes through. In some ways, perhaps this is more of an honest approach to the Tinder/Grindr age of relationships, but as drama it ends up feeling a little flat and meaning that, for all its fun and promising qualities, Boy Meets Boy doesn’t linger that long in the memory.

★★★

24FPS @ LFF 2020: I Am Samuel

I Am Samuel

Dir: Pete Murrimi

Kenya is not a good place to be part of the LGBT+ community. Not only is there a huge stigma, but gay sex is illegal, punishable by up to 14 years imprisonment. That's the context in which Pete Murrimi's camera follows Samuel, a 26-year-old gay man, his partner Alex and looks at their relationship with each other, with their friends, and Samuel's relationship with his parents, both before and after they discover that he is gay.

The film gets up close with both halves of its central couple. We don't see Alex's parents, because they have all but disowned him. In an interview that encapsulates many of the struggles of being gay in this kind of society, Alex talks about how he thinks his father may have hired people to "teach him a lesson". Later on we also see the couple moving, after Alex has been attacked, though whether this is connected to what he believes about his father isn't entirely clear.

As befits its title, I Am Samuel doesn't dig deeply into the wide societal issues of being gay in Kenya. The roots of prejudice are perhaps glancingly seen in Samuel's dad's preaching, but Murrimi doesn't probe this, he's clearly more interested in Samuel and Alex's life together and how they find moments of levity. One of the most joyous of these is on the couple's first anniversary when they hold an engagement ceremony with all of their friends. It's a sweet moment, filled with love.

I Am Samuel could definitely be deeper, it's frustrating at times that Murrimi seldom asks questions, especially of Samuel's parents. It's also frustratingly short at 67 minutes and there is the feeling that some of the deeper questions could be more fully addressed with a slightly expanded running time. As it is, the sadness and threat that can encroach on Samuel and Alex's relationship lurks around the edges of the film, but it's refreshing to be able to share in their happier moments.

★★★