An odd bunch of three:
Undercover - 1943 - now this is proper austerity filmmaking: a bare-bones propaganda effort exhorting Britain to back the brave uprising of the noble Yugoslavs (as they then were) and assure everyone that it's well worth fighting Nazis to the death. Not a sentiment I disagree with tbh but you do get a sense of just how narrow the margins were getting and how desperate UK film-board bods must have been to do their bit - and be
seen to be doing their bit. Technically, dramatically, not at all a classic. I guess the Highlands are standing in for the Balkans but Michael Wilding - a very charming and debonair pre war leading man - is not up to the task of embodying a Serbian partisan. Does that contemporary thing of folding in some real-life newsreel footage (of whole fields full of horse-drawn carts which civilians had been trying to escape in ... before they got bombed
) and has some striking/odd/sobering moments, given today's perspective, where characters yarn on about the brave + noble Yugoslavs all being willing to die for freedom and never forgetting or forgiving a grudge...
Last Black Man in San Francisco 2019 - thought I'd find this irritating, twee, self-involved, and yeah it's a bit arty for comfort (slightly too much Wes Anderson-style arch-faux-art-directed, and some "ooh look aren't we daring" fourth-wall-breaking theatre of unease antics). But this is a lovely and elegaic and visually very, very striking movie about race, class, gentrification, family dysfunction, friendship and the future of the city, absolutely gorgeous to look at, full of sly wit and great performances. Whimsy done right - with a big dash of dark and acid sarcasm.
Les Miserables (2019) not the musical, not the classic - this is the fast, furious, BRILLIANT banlieue-update movie directed by Ladj Ly. In one sense not original - 25 years on from
La Haine France has learned nothing, and that's its point - and if you've seen any of the recent crop of neo-cop-panorama thrillers like
BAC Nord a lot of the turf is familiar. The difference is that this one comes from inside the neighbourhoods, and paints a properly in-the-round picture of whole communities, rather than just painting them as a backdrop for some dirty cops' voyages of self-discovery. (
BAC Nord was slated by some critics as effectively "Vote Le Pen!" propaganda. ) Ladj Ly apparently first got started in film-making when he'd follow and record cops misbehaving in his own neighbourhood .... and that sense of scrappy, risky, put-yourself-on-the line commitment really comes through. It's a bit schematic in places (a team of clueless new cop, jaded medium cop and real bad-guy veteran cop clash with each other; youth and police fight with each other; local crims and ex-crims and "community leaders" vie for control ; things go horribly wrong...) but all done with extreme energy and creativity. Fantastic performances and the best crash course in contemporary criminal French you are likely to hear/see. This was on Film 4 in the middle of the night - not sure if it's available elsewhere but can't recommend it highly enough. SEE IT. (And that goes double if France win the World Cup this year.)
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