LFF 2011: Superheroes, and Chicken With Plums

Superheroes
Surprise, surprise, superheroes do exist. They don’t have any powers, but they do wear costumes, they do have funny names and they do good deeds.

This timely documentary talks to and spends time with your average Joe American who for one reason or another decides they should ape Superman, Spider-Man, etc. We meet Mr Extreme in San Diego, Master Legend in Orlando, Thanatos in Canada, and the New York Initiative: they discuss their origins, the reasons for their actions and the camera follows them on nightly patrols.

Director Mike Barnett originally started research on more than 1,000 real life superheroes before concentrating on this handful, and they are an interesting bunch, their origins strangely similar to well-known heroes, their language and their thought processes ripped straight from the comic strip page.

A bunch of losers? May be, but they’re doing good deeds in the community for no reward.

The film is objective, offering no insight of its own, only the insight from the heroes themselves. The final scene, as thousands of fanboys descend on San Diego’s convention centre for the annual geekfest that is Comic-Con, while the real-life heroes from across the USA team up to help the homeless just a mile away from that convention centre, says more than the film achieves in its previous 80 minutes.
Score: 6.5/10

Chicken With Plums
This heart-breaking film from the mind of Marjane Satrapi will inevitably – and unfairly – be compared with the adaptation of her graphic novel Persepolis. Where the latter combined winning animation and social history, the former is a beautifully acted part-animation/part-live action fable.

Leading the cast is Mathieu Amalric as Nasser Ali a temperamental violinist in Tehran in the late 50s, a brilliant Maria de Medeiros his long-suffering wife. The film charts, across the eight days that lead to his death, the reasons for his failed marriage, his failed career and his deathwish.

Never less than charming, this eloquent, melancholy tale has a Tim Burton-esque edge to it – the humour is both black and slickly sweet, leavened with pain. The climax to the film delivers a firm kick to the gut that should wring tears from even the stoniest heart.
Score: 7.5/10