![]() A handsome hunk of a proletarian sailor, he saves a scion of a wealthy family from a beating and is welcomed into its home, whereupon he becomes smitten with the vapid daughter (Jessica Cressy) and discovers Baudelaire. Pietro Marcello’s Martin Eden, adapted from Jack London’s autobiographical 1909 novel and updated to Italy between the world wars, offers nothing less than the tumultuous sweep of the last century – and a storm warning about demagoguery in this one.īrilliantly punctuated with archival footage, the saga is embedded in the likeable but dangerous Martin (the outstanding Luca Marinelli). A pure, joyous, revelatory piece of filmmaking. ![]() As the new lovers leave the party in the dawn, for the film’s coda in the outside world, we also feel that calm buzz that comes after a great night out. After the amusing transformation of a large house into party venue, cheerful DJs preside over a feast of reggae, disco and dub, as passion, menace and family drama play out on and around their dance floor. The “blues parties” were a popular way for Black people to enjoy themselves without the racial abuse that welcomed them in clubs. But within this seemingly narrow construct McQueen offers a love story, a vibrant depiction of a little-recorded cultural phenomenon and an intensely immersive celebration of some glorious dance music. For the majority of its 70 minutes, Lovers Rock is, literally, a house party, in West London in 1980. The second in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe films about West Indian experience in the UK has a radical simplicity. Its opposite number was the smug, airless, self-indulgence of Sofia Coppola’s On the Rocks, a film which finally saw me fall out of love with Bill Murray. Let’s hope that 2021 sees cinemas able to open again and that audiences haven’t entirely abandoned collective viewing under the relentless pressure of streaming. Those visits yielded both my best and worst films of the year Ladj Ly’s Les Misèrables with its exhilarating, ambivalent portrait of relations between police and proles in a Paris suburb was my favourite. Flicking through the photos of Dreamlands, Trocaderos, Astorias and Pavilions reminded me of how miserable it’s been to review films intended for picture palaces in my less than palatial living room. The viewing experience is flattened and each movie becomes blurry in my memory.īut the covid lull in the summer allowed me to go to my beloved French Institute’s art deco Ciné Lumière and sit in the darkness with no distractions. ![]() One of my last purchases, before the shops closed yet again, was a 1999 English Heritage guide to British cinemas that were in need of protection, found in an Oxfam shop. On the contrary, the avoidance of editing tricks adds to the immediacy and veracity of the story– a feeling of real time that captures the pulse of action without feeling overdone. What makes 1917 so strong is the fact that Mendes’s fluid journey through the battlefield never feels like a gimmick. This is edge of your seat stuff, bringing to life a terrifying universe that’s almost surreal yet grittily tactile. Mendes chose one of the best directors of photography in the world, Roger Deakins: the sense of being right there is breath-taking, as the camera follows the men weaving their way through trenches, tunnels, ruins and the water-logged craters in shell-pocked fields. The pity of war has rarely been so powerfully evoked. Sam Mendes’s daring story of two men on a heroic mission to save British troops, was shot in what seems to be two single-takes. Here's hoping that 2021 sees the triumphant return of cinemas alongside a buoyed independent sector, giving greater choice to distributors and audiences alike. Film has proved to be resilient, and a sparser schedule allowed for some hidden gems to shine through. This year's Best Of selection reflects the strange and diverse release calendar of 2020. Instead, it's been the indies and the streamers keeping us entertained through these days of isolation.
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