Love & Anarchy Advent Calendar

 

So, we had a Love & Anarchy Film Festival this year as well. I was taking it slow in covering it, but then I realized it was over two months ago. But perhaps by starting an Advent Calendar I can cover 24 movies that were seen at the festival. They had chosen a really good program, and kept the audience as safe as possible in these circumstances. Check back to this post on every day of December to catch up on reviews.

1. First Cow (USA, 2019)
Director: Kelly Reichardt

Kelly Reichardt is known for making slow, quiet and ponderous movies, so it's kind of a jump when the new one is basically a buddy comedy of two grifters in the Old West. It's the kind of western that follows on the footsteps of McCabe & Mrs Miller and the like, everything is grey, brown, dirty, flimsily built and wooden. There's no glory or romanticism involved, even if the framing story tells of a modern woman finding out about the history involved.

The movie is a good, multilayered depiction of the friendship between two underdogs, played by John Magaro and Orion Lee. It also has some critique of the American Dream and drive towards entrepreneurship, which proves impossible for even the skilled ones if enough odds are against them right from the start. That's why they have to resort to cheating, stealing milk from the prize cow to improve their cakes and thus bake sales. The film has a cold, unflinching look at nature, which is at the same time utterly ruthless and oddly comforting. we are all parts of the woods in the end.

★★★★

2. Wendy (USA, 2019)
Dir. Benh Zeitlin

 

The impressionistic director Benh Zeitlin with his crew has prepared his follow-up to Beasts of a Southern Wild for seven years. While that one saw wonder and childlike amazement in poor and devastated Southeast terriories, this one takes a jump toward even more fantastic storytelling. It's a reworking of the story of Peter Pan.

The film is again visually stunning, and the locations in the Pacific Islands with an active volcano are nothing short of breathtaking. This time around, Zeitling guides a larger cast of child actors, none of which are as strong to carry a movie as Quvenzhané Wallis was. It also seems that the long production period and kids growing up so fast has made it necessary to tell the story fragmented and disjointed. It may be argued that its due to the logic following children's playtimes, but it makes for a tedious thing to follow. There are some kind of cool reworkings of the Pan story set to a more modern backdrop, but some are basically terrible. Mostly anything to do with Captain Hook and his pirates. Beasts of a Southern Wild was not without its problems, but it had a more clear purpose, now it seems it's a bit too childish and dumbed down for adults and not exciting enough for kids, satisfying no one.

★★

3. Lost Boys (Finland/Thailand 2020)
Dirs. Joonas Neuvonen, Sadri Cetinkaya

 

The documentary film Reindeerspotting made waves a decade ago, and also became a big hit in Finland. The movie depicted a group of drug addicts from Lapland in their daily lives, fighting against their urges, boredom, and the system. From the profits of the film, the real-life buddy group got enough money to fly to Thailand for the winter. After a few months of pure hedonism, sex, drugs and all other vices, only the film's director Joonas Neuvonen returned home. Soon after, one of the group was missing and the first film's main character Jani was found dead in shady circumstances.

The sequel film is of Neuvonen's attempts to recollect, what went wrong and to try to find out what exactly happened to his friends. The material he had for this film were fragmented, some in pooor quality. The reason the film took a decade was that it needed multiple screenwriters, editors and even co-directors to make sense of all this. Considering this, the resulting film is a wonder, a docufiction that is both a horrifying psychedelic nightmare in the vein of Gaspar Noé and Nicolas Winding Refn. On the other hand, it is also a sad look at the dead end facing the first film's characters. They might get some fleeting moments of happiness late in their lives, but it's all a illusion and the ground is approaching fast. This time around, Neuvonen puts himself more to under the magnifying glass, emphasizes his own bad feelings about the case and maybe his own fractured psyche.

★★★★

4. Radioactive (UK, Hungary, China, France, USA 2019)
Dir. Marjane Satrapi

 

The author of Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi, hasn't had the most successful career as a film director. His previous film, Voices, flopped in the Stateside, so she has had to resort to having an easy-to-sell biography project made with funding from around the world as her next project. The film tells the life story of chemist Marie Curie, discoverer of Radioactive elements. As it is, Radioactive has many moments of visual intrigue and good acting, but it can't avoid all the major pratfalls of the biography genre.

Rosamund Pike carries the film as headstrong Curie. As Satrapi tends to do with her comics work, she also intercuts the story with asides that show consequences of the discoveries, both good (radiation treatments) and bad (the Chernobyl accident). Those asides however reveal the film's limited budget, even if it's stretched admirably to fit these parts. The major problem is, however, that like most scientists, the life story by itself isn't really that captivating, and showing of all the various awards and stuff seems like reading from a Wikipedia page. The center is the relationship between Marie and Pierre (Sam Riley), but it lacks tension since Pierre is doing his best to share credits and help Marie as much as he can. The adventures in World War I with her daughter, shrugged off in the film's last 20 minutes, would have been more interesting to follow than focusing on the early parts.

★★

5. Nomadland (USA, Germany 2020)
Dir. Chloé Zhao

Director Zhao once again finds a way to make a western that's relevant to the themes for today. And she does it with a docufiction style, having plenty of people with the nomad lifestyle essentially play themselves. It's a touching film about the inability to find one's place in the world, but for once, not through the eyes of a teen or a young adult, but an actual adult, magnificently portrayed by Frances McDormand.

McDormand's Fern is tossed out after the closure of a major factory and an entire town's livelyhood. She does meaningless part-time work for Amazon and lives in her trailer, traveling the Great Plains of USA.  On her way, she tries developing relationships, but everything seems fleeting and avoid her grasp. The film has an anti-capitalist sting, but I feel the film could have had more brutally honest things to say about Amazon's worker practices, which were only alluded to here. It may be due to the realities of releasing such a melancholic film for adults, one can't rule out Amazon by biting the hand that may feed you. It's a shame Zhao herself seems to accept the odd job here and there, since she's moving on to the MCU. I think certain rising talents could produce incredible movies elsewhere, whereas with Marvel they'll probably do something reasonably entertaining but forgettable. But that's late-stage capitalism for you. It maximises profits, not art.

★★★★ 1/2

6. Dogs Don't Wear Pants (Koirat eivät käytä housuja, Finland, Latvia 2019)
Dir. J-P Valkeapää

 

I had actually seen this last year in festival screenings, but since then this movie has become a bit notorious abroad, so it warrants a mention. It's a sort of dark comedy of a man (Pekka Streng) struggling with grief finding a new lease in life with kinky sex and especially with a blossoming relationship with a dominatrix (Krista Kosonen).

Valkeapää is perhaps the most gifted visualist of the new generation of Finnish filmmakers. Here he has some shades of neon noir or the films of the likes of Noé and Friedkin, but manages to do something unique and undoubtedly his. It's a considerable step up of his previous work that had clearer pastiches. It's not as rough and kinky as one might expect, but it's also no surprise that some things get taken a bit far. The key of the movie is in its central triangle drama of sorts with a father being drawn into a sexy underworld, but his daughter also needing him in her struggles.

★★★★

7. My Octopus Teacher (South Africa 2020)
Dirs. Pippa Ehrlich, James Reed

Filmmaker Craig Forster recalls an unusual encounter with an octopus in an underwater kelp forest. Octopi are as intelligent as house cats, so the fil m goes out its way to show how they too can act as personally, gracefully and smartly as any pet, with footage to support it. I'm usually wary of films that make of animal behaviour to be to human-like, and there are some interpretations here that near the line. As it is however, is a reminder that we have incredible species around the world that have their own emotions, and we just can't go on destroying the landscapes in which they live in.  

★★★

Hey, Cartoonist!

Last week saw the 70th birthday of Underground Comix legend Robert Crumb, master of hilarious, perverted, crazy, borderline insane, subtle, life-like and musical comics - using often many of these stylistic choices in the same strip. That's why I thought it would be kind of cool to pay tribute by taking a look at two comic book movies about underground artists - one a documentary, one fictional, that's still a part documentary. Crumb is of course featured in both of them.

I got to say, I'd like to see more underground comic book movies. Let's hope someday the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers stop motion animation movie Grass Roots will be completed.

Crumb
USA, 1994
Dir. Terry Zwigoff

Terry Zwigoff's extensive R. Crumb doc is held in high esteem, and for a good reason. Not only does it provide insight on the mind of an artist, it also features characters colorful enough that the feel like they would've jumped out of Crumb's own comix. The most interesting ones are Robert's two eccentric brothers, Charles and Maxon, reclusive and tragic figures who resemble some aspects of their brother and his neuroses, but whose life took to entirely different paths. The film is called Crumb and it certainly doesn't just refer to the famous one, but the whole family.

The movie is dedicated to the memory of Charles Crumb, who died prior the release, but is interviewed here. He had immense artistic talent as a young boy, maybe even moreso than his brother. His odd obsessions with Treasure Island are dealt with, as well as his more and more obsessive behavior, which results to his art getting too experimental for its own good. Interviewed here, Charles is a husk of a man, a mama's boy who never managed to become his own man. It's tragic that a promising artist never takes off, and doubly so if it results in bitterness and melancholy for the rest of his life.

The film was not an easy shoot, and took six years to make. Zwigoff had stress about funding, but his friendship with the main character helped to pull him through. It also shows on the screen. R. Crumb himself is also a bit of an introvert, and probably wouldn't have been as open with another director. But here he is frank and honest about his work, process and life in general.

And also that time he posed with women for a porn magazine shoot.

We deal with the most famous R. Crumb comix and characters pretty quickly. The film is driven more by the character, a constantly doodling gawky jazz-fan, who views the modern life and pop culture in general more or less with contempt. Crumb's sex drive is also discussed, and his most controversial works are shown in a new light. Art critics, feminists, peers, fans and journalists discuss their merits, but there's no conclusion. It doesn't feel like a fan film, and I would imagine it to be interesting even to people who don't care that much about comics, underground or not. Go check it out.

★★★★

American Splendor
USA, 2004
Dirs. Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini

Crumb also does collaborations from time to time, and the most famous of these is illustrating the scripts written by his friend, the bitter file clerk Harvey Pekar. His comics always tell about one thing and one thing only: Harvey Pekar. Pekar is a complete contrast to your superheroes or high adventurers of typical comics, as he lives a somewhat mundane life and just does observations and musings on that. He does manage to make good humor out of that, and make his ordeals feel identifiable. The title American Splendor may be ironic, but in some ways, it is also perfectly apt.

Pekar is the furthest from being a sell-out cartoonist this side of Bill Watterson. The film feels like his story, in that it's your regular A-B-C life story. The basics are there, but in addition to that, there are small skits from the pages of the comic, animated sequences, the viewpoint goes over to his nerdy friend Toby for a while, and most confusingly, there are documentary bits with the real-life Harvey Pekar and his wife. These scenes have some retrospective views on the things just shown in the main storyline. Most of the movie Harvey's being played by Paul Giamatti.

The comics in this film are an outlet for the neurotic Giamatti to let off some steam and come to terms with things. A key scene features Harvey and Toby (Judah Friedlander) arguing over the merits of the college comedy Revenge of the Nerds. Do the downtrodden need a story which allows them to be the heroes for one day, even if the movie is by-the-numbers lint? Is the need to identify oneself so strong? (For the record, I like Revenge of the Nerds)

This gives an idea of a chaotic film, but there is weird synchronicity here. The grumpy Pekar just does his thing, bit by bit. That's why he wouldn't want to have a moral on his story, but the film does make one. Even though life may seem boring, chaotic, unobtainable and hard, looking at the long run, all the various patches and places do form some sort of a story. It may not be a grand, adventurous story of making a change or doing something spectacular, but then most of us are everymen. It is interesting to hear about another one once in a while. Particularly if the movie is funny to boot. Which this is.

★★★1/2

PÖFF 2012

The always-charming Pimedate Ööde Filmfestivaali (Dark Nights Film Festival) in Tallinn this year's November was as full interesting programme as ever. While it offered some treats that have not yet been shown anywhere in Finland, most of the programme was familiar to Helsinki's avid festival-goers and arthouse cinema fans. But no matter, it will once again give me an excuse to take a look back at this year's offerings before the annual Best Of -lists.

Pieta (Hangul, South Korea)
Director: Kim Ki-duk

It seems that following his recovery from nervous breakdown, director Kim Ki-duk has started to shift away from his trademarked slow, artistic storytalling and more towards the Korean mainstream. His latest film is a Revenge Thriller, much in the vein of Park Chan-Wook's Vengeance Trilogy or Bong Joon-Ho's Mother. The film is based on a very fucked-up morality idea, which Korean films seem to specialize in. At least it doesn't go as far as Kim Jee-woon's I Saw The Devil.

Lee Kang-do (Lee Jung-jin) is the most violent and ruthless debt collector in mafia's paycheck. He hasn't any emphaty for anyone, and is glad to maim his "customers" for insurance money. Back home he usuallu spends time sleeping or masturbating. One day, a strange woman follows him home. He tries to drive her away, but she enters his house by force, and insists on cleaning up. She reveals herself to bee Kang-do's long-lost mother, Jang Mi-sun (Jo Min-su).

Initially Kang-do refuses his mother, and acts as if she's not there. He goes on his work, even though she insists on taging along. of course, she doesn't approve of the violence, but nevertheless attempts to win her son over by helping along. Slowly, Kang-do starts to warm up to Mi-sun. But she did have another reason to return to him after so many years, and this is just one step in her major plan.

Kim uses a lot of Christian iconography in the film, making a stark contrast on the people who certainly aren't living by Jesus's Golden Rule. He also doesn't spare the audience in awkward sexual content nor bone-crunching or skin-frying violent scenes. Yet for all the effectiveness of the cinematography and sheer skill in the storytelling, the whole film has a very slight feeling. As if the master is afraid to bring on his A-game. There have been good thrillers that have pondered the same sort of questions between family, morality, duty, sexuality and politics before. Pieta for all it's worth, can't really bring that much new things in the mix.

★★★

Call Girl (Sweden)
Director: Michael Marcimain

The most talked-about film this year in Sweden was this intriguing political thriller that is based on several real life scandals from the 1970s. While the film certainly takes some liberties to fill in some gaps, and makes some indirect accusations on past politicians, the depiction of 70's Sweden is noticeably realistic. The result is something like The Wire meets Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy in the Red Lights district.

Iris (Sofia Karemyr) and Sonja (Josefin Aspelund) are two misbehaving 14-year-olds living in a school home. The rebellious teens tend to run away to meet boys, drink alcohol and trick themselves into bars. But they run into a wrong crowd of girls who seem to have it all; a free apartment where to party, free alcohol with no questions asked, and plenty of money to use. The girls fall down deeper and deeper into the rabbot hole, until they find themselves to be in the service of bordello keeper Dagmar Glans (the magnificent Pernilla August).

Meanwhile, the small-time government clerk and pencil-pusher John Sandberg (Simon J. Berger) runs an operation to check Dagmar's shady business. He taps phones, plants tails and reads everything connected to her. Soon he starts to realize that Dagmar's clients aren't just faceless rich people, they are socialites from the very top of the Swedish society. Included might even be the rising Minister of Justice (Claes Ljungmark). But in trying to expose this scandal, Sandberg runs into a lot of trouble. But election day is coming and he remains adamant that the people will have to know the truth about their minister, who at the same time is strongly preaching about democracy and women's rights.

The film has three viewpoint characters, Iris, Dagmar and John. Each one has an intriguing story that has a lot of nuances and insights. It seems that the Swedes really like the archetypal characters of heroic jounalist finding the black spots in Social democracy, as well as the young girl who gets mistreated by misogynists working within the social norms. At times the film almost feels like it has too much content. A lot of these nuances get lost from the viewer when the story is suddenly skipping from one main plot to another. This approach would work better in a television series or a book.

In the end this society-shaking thriller is still superbly exciting stuff. The retro-styled electronic music, as well as pop hits from the era make a perky soundtrack, that houses a much more sinister core. While Swedish spying within the country in the 70's wasn't as large-scaled as in the Cold War setting, the stakes were still quite high. The film contains the idea that the country is willing to turn a blind eye on injustice, while at the same time the country poses as the moral superior and forerunner in the world. I'm almost certain I will enjoy the film more on subsequent viewings, since it contains so much to chew.

★★★★

God Bless America (USA)
Director: Bobcat Goldtwaith

Could it be the Western civilization is nearing its end? At least it seems that our mutual culture has reached some lows that aren't easy to climb back up, as well as the political system is bitter, feuded and utterly divided, particularly in America. Stand up comedian Bobcat Goldthwait's satire attempts no less to be a Natural Born Killers for the Naughties, a satire about a kill spree that reveals all that's wrong with the world today.

Sad-sack middle-ager Frank (Joel Murray) hates his job, neighbors, television programmes and life in general. He has to see his estranged daughter grow up to be just another prissy little asshole, living with his ex-wife and her new husband. The final straw is drawn when Joel is diagnosed with a fatal brain tumor. So, before ending his miserable days, he takes a last-ditch effort to make the world a better place by getting rid of his daughter's role-model, a spoiled rich brat whining on MTV about the wrong-colored car her parents got her as a birthday present. But by killing her, Joel also attracts the attention of her class-mate Roxy (Tara Lynn Barr), who insists they should go on a kill-spree to rid the world of assholes.

I suppose everyone has had fantasies of brutally executing parking violators, loudmouthed teens at movies, fugly screaming babies, uncompromising extreme-right wing politicians or douchebag tween stars. Goldthwait's murder fantasy balances on a fine line, particularly since America has had their share of tragic gun mishaps lately. But while the assholes in the film are really obnoxious, this is also a film smart enough to constantly question the morales and minds of its protagonists. While Joel is symphatetic, Roxy in particular often comes across just as bad and annoying as everyone she would like to end.

But all in all, as a satire, this is a bit slight. It really targets just one side of a culture and doesn't offer much in the way of analyzing how the society has come to this. It's more of a check list of everything annoying it's eccentric screenwriter/director. However, the film's main question on whether people can't be nice to each other any more, is a very valid one nowadays.

★★★

Caesar Must Die (Cesare deve morire, Italy)
Directors: Paolo & Vittorio Taviani

This year's Berlinale's top prize went to this sort-of docu-drama by Italian filmmakers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani. I say "sort of" because this certainly isn't an easy film to be comfortably fit in any pre-given characterization. Shot mostly in black-and-white, and in flashback, the film chronicles inmates at a high-security prison staging a play of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

We get to know the inmates for the most part only from the short scenes of the applying for a part in the play. They tell what they are in prison for, and at the same time heaps of their back story. The major flaw in the film is that one would like to learn to learn more of them. Now watching interviews for a long period of time is a little exhausting, and one can't remember most of it for what comes next. There are mafiosos, hotheads and people just trying to make ends meet, and the only thing that really connects them is the punishment at first, and the play later on.

Practicing for their roles, the inmates become to utterly inhabit their roles. Since there isn't much else to do in prison, the play becomes the sole reason for their existence. The prison architecture begins to look like a huge stage, and the similarities of Ancient Rome and the hierarchy at the Big House begin to get mixed together. But what comes after the play is done? The film is very experimental, twisting a famed tale to have a couple of layers more, but it is captivating to watch.

★★★★

War Witch (Rebelle, Canada)
Director: Kim Nguyen

The film's two names tell a lot of it's two sides. It's about a girl who is a Soldier and a Magician at the same time, but fights constantly against the poor lot given to her in life. Komona (Rachel Mwanza) lives in the civil war-ridden Sub-Saharan Africa. At the age of 13, she sees her home village destroyed, and her being forced to murder her own parents. But this scarring experience seemingly also gives her the ability to communicate with the dead and stay out of harm's way. The invading soldiers equip her to fight for the Rebellion, but soon find that her abilities have better use to them as an Oracle, predicting the course of fighting.

The film chronicles Komona's life for three cricial years, during which she leaves her home, fights as a soldier, falls in love with a fellow wizard, the albino known as Magician (Serge Kanyinda), gets married and pregnant, and seeks to please the spirits of the dead by giving her parents a proper burial. Her life has several tragic twists for the worse, but adamant she keeps on going, even against the odds.

For all its darkness, War Witch embraces the African way of life from multiple angles. The belief in magic and mysticism isn't drawn out, but rather a comfortable part of all human interaction. At peaceful time, people are willing to help each other, and not taking worries of any petty details. When the Magician goes on a search of a rooster, people have a good laugh at his expense, even if he's pointing an AK-47 at their faces. His eagerness to find an extremely rare creature for love is endearing to people, even if he threatens their very lifes. People living in the war-ridden territories are well used to it.

★★★★

Marley (USA/UK)
Director: Kevin McDonald

This two-and-ahalf hour documentary chronicles no less than the whole life of Bob Markey, poet and a prophet. The most popular reggae star of all time had a bumpy career, with success that didn't come overnight but which was fought for years. The documentary gathers an impressive cast of interviewees, from Marley's immidiate family (mother, sons) to close friends and co-workers (including Lee "Scratch" Perry and Jimmy Cliff). The film also captures the rise of Marley-mania, beginning from Jamaica and taking over the whole world from teh United Kingdom to Japan to the United States.

The film is all business, to the point where it starts to resemble a historical documentary more than a mere music biography. The basics of Marley's life are well-covered all around, but at the same time, the movie also doesn't go very intimately into any subject. Any new revealations are scarce, even if Marley's sons remembering him as a father, and his beloved remembering his final days are quite touching. Altogether this works as a good 101 on Bob Marley's music, but I would always like that a biography film would look more like its central subject. This is a bit too distant and the cinematic tricks generic to reflect a truly innovative artist.

★★★

The Thieves (Dodookdeul, South Korea)
Director: Choi Dong-Hoon

The English subtitles didn't work on the PÖFF screening of this South Korean caper film, so I have little to say about it's plot. But it's a colorful, fast-paced film, with kinetic action scenes, globe-trotting exotiscm in the vein of the best James Bond flicks, plenty of sexy ladies and double-crossing. It seems like the cast is filled with colorful characters as well. Mark this one a prime candidate for a proper rewatch at some point in the future.

Captive (France/Philippines/USA/UK)
Director: Brillante Mendoza

The latest film by Brillante Mendoza is a naturalistic look into the captivity endured by western tourists in the hands of Abu Sayyaf guerrilla fighters in  . The film is mostly told through the eyes of the French schoolteacher Thérèse (Isabelle Huppert). She had come to Palawan for humanitarian aid, yet goes into long-winded soul-searching after her kidnapping and harsh life hiding out in the jungle. She does fill the role of taking care of the elderly and the sickly among other captives. Yet the terrorists have little use to any hostages that can't manage to flee any spot as quickly as possible to avoid capture.

The film is repetitive and harsh, although this does reflect the nature of the situation the main characters are in. At several points, mednoza winds down, and offers some magificent jungle footage. The flora and fauna live on, caring little about the quarrells of people. In this nature, the clear predecessor of this film is Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line. However, Mendoza is not capable of balancing the poeticism and harsh realities as masterfully. The film drags often, and its characters remain quite thin, even if they are tried to flesh out now and then. The resulting film is a pick-and-mix bag, sometimes quite good, some times dull.

★★★

Shame (UK/USA)
Director: Steve McQueen

Director Steve McQueen's look into sex addiction has reaped a lot of critical acclaim. A lot of this comes from his quiet, slow-moving and very visual style, even though the filmmaker doesn't always seem to think it through on what kind of storytelling the style would fit best. But Shame is certainly a better told story than McQueen's previous, too-experimental-for-its-own-good debut Hunger. Michael Fassbender does a good, convincing main role as Brandon. The 30-something stock-broker is udes to picking up girls at bars, subways or really, everywhere he might run into a flirt. He also has huge stacks of porn, a subscription to live internet sex camera sites, and a tendency to hire call girls for his pleasure.

When Brandon's younger sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) comes to an unexpected visit, he has to start rethinking his life. The shame of his condition forces him to move his sexual activities out of his apartement. At the same time he is disgusted when his boss picks up Sissy and the pair have sex. Brandon has serious problems with intimacy and angrily and bitterly refuses any close contact with Sissy. It appears that he's overcompensating for some guilty feelings, and the movie suggests he has trouble seeing women in anything other than sex objects.

Sex addiction is not an easy subject to make a film about, since it often falls into the pit of exploitation (as in the notorious Finnish film Levottomat 3) or moralization. McQueen does manage to have a cold, distant view on the films for the majority of the running time, but falls head first into the latter by the end. The cheesy pouting and extremities that are on offer put some unnecessary weight, when McQueen had put so much weight into individual images earlier. When Brandon's hedonism also goes way overboard, the film starts bordering on the line of exploitation after all. McQueen's hard-pressed style doesn't stay intact throughout the film, which is a true shame.

★★★

HIFF2012: On the Side of the Angels

 It's about time I finished off this year's reporting on the Love & Anarchy Festival. It was swell and all, but I've got other festivals to write about too. On this last look at the festival's films, I've selected several feel-good films, all of them about underdogs of sorts who strive to enjoy their lives and to greatness by doing whatever it is they love. Kind of a good life lesson, and one that encapsulates Love & Anarchy within it. So, until next year, Helsinki International Film Festival!

The Angels' Share (UK/France/Belgium/Italy)
Director: Ken Loach

The acclaimed director Ken Loach tries out a more comedic approach to his latest film. Make no mistake, it is still about the hardships of lowe-class Scots in a society that can't really fit them anywhere. The ensuing adventure or heist may not be very believable, but the film lives and dies by its cast of characters.

The young Robbie (Paul Brannigan) tries to walk the line, leaving his brawling past behind him to become a good husband and a father to his girlfriend Leonie (Siobham Reilly) and his newborn son. But he has problems with both an old family enemy and Leonie's father, who both attack him constantly. Robbie, along with a group of other minor offenders, are given community service renovating a house. During the job they start to bond with each other and their supervisor Harry (John Henshaw). Harry may be the only authority figure to treat these people with any sort of respect.

The film shifts gear when Harry takes the crew to a whisky tasting, where Robbie learns of a highly expensive old whisky being auctioned soon. A caper to earn money to get out of his rat race of a life starts to form in his life. As funny it is to follow the story, it relies in a few too many happy coincidences. One of them is Robbie's almost supernatural born gift of tasting various whiskys.

But as said, the film is as good as its characters, and the cast here is quite well-rounded with memorable characters and good actors. Stealing scenes is the dumb-as-a-bag-of-hammers Albert (Gary Maitland). Loach himself may have figured this out, too, since he gives him all the funniest lines, and even the opening scene of the movie. In that Albert is too dumb to realize he's being asked to move from railroad tracks due to an upcoming train. Such is the problem of many of the individuals on display here. They don't have the capacity to deal with the hostile world around them and consequently they don't realize how self-destructive they are. Only when they figure out a way to pull together and learn to cheat the system for their own ends, does a happy ending arrive (although it's almost sickeningly happy in this case).

Loach is hard-pressed to prove how big a humanist he is, understanding everyone around. The bone-crunching, sickeningly violent fight scenes contarst the happy-go-lucky fairy tale adventure of the rest of the movie, but don't always hit well together. If consequences are real, then the plot hinges on becoming totally unbelievable.

★★★

Gimme the Loot (USA)
Director: Adam Leon

Sold-out screenings sometimes open one's schedule for something else, something totally new. That was the case when I walked totally oblivious to see Adam Leon's independent teen movie about low-class kids hanging out in New York. It's a clever piece of work, selling that it's story is going to be about something in the very beginning when it's more about loitering, hanging around, plotting, and lusting. Really nothing much happens or even advances. Such is life and matched to a good perception of the poorer neighbourhoods in NYC we have a fun, breezy summer flick for the kids. And adults find plenty to enjoy, too.

Malcolm (Ty Hickson) and Sofia (Tashiana Washington) are wannabe graffiti artists who dream of gaining massive street respect, and to get back to their rivals who cover all their best work. They aim to achieve this by bombing the NY Mets Apple, a mascot that is raised every time there's a home run on a baseball game. No one has previously succeeded in this, and Malcolm and Sofia would need some money to successfully complete the job. Malcolm plans to do this by wooing a rich, idle teenager Ginnie (Zoë Lescaze) and stealing money from her parents' apartement.

Leon makes his hard-luck protagonists likeable, even if they are thieving and conning little losers. Such is the might of featuring good bullshitting scenes, and believable street-level transitional scenes. The characters feel real and like they belong to the environment. Leon also has a few brief scenes of underground parties and graffiti-making but these are by no means emphasized and are just there to give a better idea of the life the main characters are living.

The downside of the film is that it features very little in particular in terms of content, so the viewers thoughts about this are in the end kind of a breeze. But the film helps one pass the time until the next screening in a very pleasurable way. You feel as if you had just spent some time with some good friends.

★★★ 1/2

Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel (USA)
Director: Alex Stapleton

This documentary chronicles the incredible career of a true Hollywood rebel and an individual. Roger Corman has shaped so much of how movies have developed from the 50's to the 70's that it's almost impossible to overestimate his influence on American Movie industry in general. He's most beloved by people such as me, who enjoy schlock and exploitation, the films that tend to our most primal needs. But he has also funded and given a much-needed film-school in action to a number of auteurs so large, it's pointless to list them all here. Plus, Corman's own directions, such as his delightfully far-fetched adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe's novellas, are quite good in themselves.

We also get to see Corman on the set of his latest movie, going straight-to-DVD or worse, to be a SyFy channel original. It's another cheapo killer crocodile movie, featuring babes, carnage and rubber beasts just like in the good old days. Old clips make even the most tedious films of Corman's back catalogue seem exciting.

The biggest problem with the documentary is that Corman is such a larger-than-life character with such an amazing career full of twists and turns that it's almost impossible to fit it all comfrotably into 100 minutes. As such, it skips over lengthy creative periods I would've enjoyed hearing a lot more about. This project would have worked better as a television series than just a short biopic.

The strength of the film is that Corman is a very rare breed of person in Hollywood, in that you can say whatever's on your mind about him. He won't sue or even mind, because most of the stories are true anyway, and at the core he's always had a big heart. A large cast of Hollywood's whos-who has participated, including Joe Dante, Martin Scorsese, Pam Grier, Eli Roth and Robert De Niro. Bonus points for leaving motor-mouthed walking film encyclopedia Quentin Tarantino merely to a cameo role as Corman's Oscar presenter. There's plenty of story available here otherwise, as the end credits featuring a large list of interviewees cut out for time, prove.

Jack Nicholson is the most fun interviewee on display here. Thinking about his past with Corman he in turn is laughing, bitching, giving a "fuck you" or two to Roger and seemingly seething with joy over the good old days of youth, drugs and innovative filmmaking. Most surprisingly, he starts crying spontaneously. It doesn't feel staged, and wisely Stapleton directing won't linger or underline the importance of the scene. It really seems like the old actor is moved to tears while thinking about his old friend and mentor.

★★★ 1/2

Shut Up and Play the Hits (UK)
Directors: Will Lovelace, Dylan Southern

Somehow a major portion of rock documentaries these days seem to deal with midlife crises of rock stars. Case in point is the film chronicling the final concert of LCD Soundsystem, the electronic project by James Murphy. The film leaves it unclear as to why Murphy has suddenly grown tired of his stardom, but hints its all due other problems concerning him feeling himself too old to be in the middle of a scene or an idol to millions of hipsters (or, granted, fans of good music in general). And leaving his popular band behind doesn't seem like a solution to these problems anyway.

While a lot of the first act of the film deals on the identity crisis the recluctant rock star Murphy lives with, the real meat of the film is of course on the high-def concert footage of the band's final show in Madison Square Garden. It takes strangely long to get that far, given that the film opens on the day after, seeing Murphy going through mundane everyday things just like any one of us. But when we finally get the flashback of the night before, he's an angel, singing from all his heart and more perfectly than ever. The music doesn't feel melancholic, mechanic or forced, but as one big happy jam, created only through a close collaboration with a big band filled with talented musicians.

While shooting the gig, cameras swoop and swoosh, showing both incredibly close footage of Murphy and his minstrels playing, and the grandiose hall filled with an audience and drowning in light, confetti and the overwhelming emotions. The selection of muisc is a good one, emphasizing songs from the band's best album Sound of Silver.

So with a grandiose ending that leaves a good taste on everyone's mouth, and perhaps a tear or two, it was more than fitting to close this festival. Good show. Very good.

★★★★