London Film Festival 2009: the best - and the worst

Between 15 and 27 October, I saw 29 films, of which 24 were screened as part of the London Film Festival.
Undoubted highlights of the Festival were (in order in which I saw them): Up In The Air, Micmacs, The Double Hour, The Disappearance of Alice Creed, Air Doll, The Informant!, and Lebanon.

Up In The Air will doubtless receive some bad reviews because of its central conceit: this hero’s journey concerns the soul of frequent flyer Ryan Bingham, a man whose business is firing people – and with the economy in the shit, his business is good. George Clooney revels in the role of his Satan in a suit, mercilessly dolling out redundancy packages and platitudes to the soon-to-be-jobless. Bingham’s professional and personal lives are put in a spin by two women: fellow frequent flyer Vera Farmiga (it’s fair to say Clooney hasn’t generated this much chemistry with an actress since Jennifer Lopez in Out Of Sight) and new redundancy hotshot Anna Kendrick.
Directed and co-scripted by Jason Reitman (Juno and Thank You For Smoking), this is genuinely funny throughout, and not always blackly so, takes a few expected and unexpected turns, and has a pleasing 70s feel that leads to an appropriate conclusion. Plus it has the funniest emotional breakdown by an actress ever committed to celluloid.
Score: 9/10

Micmacs is the latest effort from Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Delicatessen, Alien 4, Amelie, A Very Long Engagement) and for my money is his best yet. It focuses on Danny Boon, a gunshot victim who last his father in WWII, who along with his eccentric band of brothers decides to cut the two local arms manufacturers down to size. Effectively this is a heist movie, but shot through with Jeunet’s inventive visuals, mad production design, crazy characters, love of life, and lightness of touch. Consistently funny, Micmacs should prove to be endlessly watchable.
Score: 8.5/10

The Double Hour is an Italian thriller/chiller/noir that constantly plays with the audience’s expectations of the genres. Briefly ex-cop (Filippo Timi, who has a Javier Bardem-esque brooding screen presence) meets a hotel maid while speed-dating, and then pretty much all hell ensues. The film’s subterfuge is almost immediately apparent, ensuring that you never know who you can trust (although this doesn’t prevent the audience establishing empathy with the two excellent leads). Brilliantly directed by first-timer Giuseppe Capotondi, The Double Hour comes highly recommended.
Score: 8.5/10

The Disappearance of Alice Creed will undoubtedly be marketed as the new Shallow Grave – and it stands fair comparison, unleashing a new British writer/director upon the world in the shape of J Blakeson just as Shallow Grave gave us Danny Boyle. Indeed, like Boyle, Blakeson may have to go some to ever better this tight, riveting kidnap thriller. The opening sequence is brilliantly edited, describing the logistics needed to pull off the successful kidnap of Alice Creed by two cons. As we learn more about the three characters, so the seat of power shifts between them. There are so many twists and turns taken by the script that this is all I can say without revealing spoilers! But do not think this is simply high quality schlock – it isn’t. It is gripping, scary, will have you on the edge of your seat for its entire running time, and is finely acted by its three players (particularly Gemma Arterton, who I really didn’t think could act until now). And frankly a British film hasn’t looked this good since Layer Cake.
Score: 9/10

On the face of it, Air Doll might have the maddest script of the Festival and yet its emotions and its own peculiar world are as real anything I saw this year. It concerns an inflatable sex-doll who one day gains a heart; we follow her on a journey through life and the world’s wonders. Possessed of a young child’s lack of knowledge and the ensuing curiosity, the doll interacts with half a dozen other characters, acquiring a job, friends and a boyfriend. She finds joy in the smallest things, and wants nothing more than to help everyone she meets (after all that is her purpose, to provide pleasure…), although that help is not always wanted or well-conceived. Korean star Bae Doo-Na is charming as the doll, and is surrounded by an excellent supporting cast. The film is a tad too long, but if you want an offbeat gem, you probably won’t find better this year. It is also possessed of an erotic edge simply missing from many other efforts at this year’s Festival that purported to be erotic.
Score: 8.5/10

The Informant! Sees Steven Soderbergh mixing his more arthouse leanings with the high class production sheen of Ocean’s 11. Matt Damon plays an ‘apparent’ corporate whistleblower, caught up in a web of lies, some of his own making. Not properly supported by two not-entirely capable FBI agents, Damon’s Marc Whitacre suffers as the pressure of the investigation and subsequent court case take their toll on his fragile grip on reality. Played largely for laughs (backed by a humorous score), though not at the expense of tension, The Informant! is offbeat, leftfield, etc – and for some audiences may not succeed. However, I clearly enjoyed it and was left frequently slack-jawed at the ever-increasing lies. That the script is in part true makes watching the movie an even more incredulous experience.
Score: 8/10

Media shorthand dictates that Lebanon will be labelled ‘Das Boot in a tank’ – and that’s an entirely fair comparison. But even more than the acclaimed U-boat drama, this is truly experiential cinema.
All we ever see is the interior of the tank and the four Israeli soldiers manning it – and what they can see out of it and hear on the radio – as they do their bit for Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982.
Writer/director Samuel Maoz has created this unsettling masterpiece from his own recollections of serving as a tank gunner in that war. The authenticity of the production is stunning, both the look and the sound (you really must see this in a good cinema), but not at the expense of characterisation. These are not four men, but four squabbling boys, ill-fitting with each other, ill-fit for war – but old enough to die for their country.
The stress they are put under is immense, and the audience shares in it: we feel both the nerves of the gunner, unable to shoot at a living target, and the tank commander’s anger at the gunner’s inaction.
Quite brilliant, but Lebanon is such a disturbing experience, I’m not sure I want to see it again!
Score: 9/10

However, almost certainly the best film I saw out of those 29 was Up. I thought Wall*E was going to be Pixar’s high, but this trumps it. The first seven minutes will be held up as long as film exists and is celebrated as one of the high points of cinematic achievement: a brilliant combination of near-silent storytelling, aided by great characterisation, a moving score and judicious editing. That’s not to say the film falls into a trough as Up surfs a relative tsunami of emotions in the ensuing 80 minutes, delivering great gags and raw emotional scenes, often on top of each other. To hell with the Best Animated Film Oscar, Up should be in the running for the Best Film Oscar, full stop. Its message that you should chase your dreams – and if given the chance you must grab it in honour of all those who never did – and that life is there to be lived is as important a lesson as has ever been imparted by film.
Score: 9.5/10

The Cone of Shame
This award, named after the cone that the dogs in Up fear the most, recognises the year’s most shockingly bad film. The inaugural recipient is a film so bad, so hellbent in its own madness that you can’t even laugh at it; indeed, in hindsight I would far rather have been deprived of every sense for 90 minutes! The film is Valhalla Rising. I’m not even going to attempt to explain the film’s virtually non-existent plot, nor waste time on discussing the dehumanising effect of its drone-core soundtrack, I’m just going to tell you that you need never see it, no matter how interested in Vikings or Mads Mikaelsen you are.
Valhalla Rising: you wear this year’s Cone of Shame. Wear it with dishonour!