Larry Oliver Film Reviews

  Pictured : Grete ( Luna Wedler ) and  Thomas ( Johannes Hegemann ) contemplate the mysteries of the great outdoors in the 1908 section of writer-director   Ildikó Enyedi 's exploration of the secret thoughts of plants, ' Silent Friend '. Still courtesy of Pandora Film . (c) Lenke Szil ágyi. If we could understand what plants are saying, what would we learn? This is the question posed by Hungarian director Ildikó Enyedi’s film, Silent Friend . The ‘friend’ of the title is a large gingko tree featured in two strands of a film that spans three time periods, 1908, 1972 and 2020. Enyedi examines the role played by women in understanding the secret language of plants. ‘The results are going to be vague,’ notes Dr Alice Sauvage (Léa Seydoux), who supervises research carried out by Dr Tony Wong (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) in a mostly vacant facility in Marburg, Germany – his study takes place during the Covid lockdown of 2020. Enyedi doesn’t provide an answer, but perhaps the tree is...

Pictured : Basil ( Mohammad Nizar , left) and his mother, Nadia ( Clara Khoury , right) enjoy a moment of calm in the Jordanian mental health drama, ' Sink ', written and directed by Zain Duraie . Still courtesy of Unifrance (France) / London Film Festival (UK) I don’t know anyone immediately requesting films made by women about families coping with teenagers with troubling mental health conditions but two have arrived at once. Sink (Gharaq), the debut feature film from Jordanian writer-director Zain Duraie, charts a mother’s attempt to deal with her eldest son’s mental collapse without the aid of medical diagnosis. As with Sophy Romvari’s Blue Heron , a lot of the action takes place in the home. Here, the teenager, Basil (Mohammad Nizar) struggles with the pressure of his upcoming exams, although it is suggested that he was a loner long before his classroom blow-up. During a lesson, he describes a medical procedure, reading from index cards at a fast pace while pointing to h...

  Pictured : Troubled teen Jeremy ( Edik Beddoes ) in a scene from writer-director Sophy Romvari 's Canadian film, ' Blue Heron ', in which a family struggles to better respond to Jeremy's mental health crisis. Still courtesy of Sophy Romvari / Locarno Film Festival Blue Heron is a Canadian film about responding to a family member with mental health needs exhibiting troubling anti-social behaviour. It asks: could prolonged study resulting a better understanding of the young person’s condition change their outcome? The answer, based on the case history presented by writer-director Sophy Romvari, is, ‘no, it couldn’t’. The family is presented with an appalling choice by social services that goes against every parenting instinct, that is, voluntary placement with a foster family. ‘You’re taking my child away from me!’ declares the mother (Iringó Réti). ‘How is this possible?’ The adolescent in question is Jeremy (Edik Beddoes), a tall James Spader-lookalike in a floppy y...

  Pictured : Alboury ( Isaach de Bankolé ) patiently awaits the release of his brother's body in a scene from ' The Fence ', director Claire Denis ' adaptation of Bernard-Marie Koltes ' 1979 play, ' Black Battles with Dogs '. Still: (c) Curiosa, Saint Laurent, Vixens In her 79 th year, French director Claire Denis returns to Africa for her 17 th fictional feature film, The Fence , an English language drama based on a French play, ‘Black Battles With Dogs’ by Bernard-Marie Koltes, first performed in 1979. Alboury (Denis’ frequent collaborator, Isaach de Bankolé) appears at the fence of a ‘West African construction site’ to claim the body of his brother (Brian Begnan) apparently hit by a bulldozer; the film’s production notes specify the setting as Nigeria. He insists on do so immediately in order to assuage the grief of the deceased’s mother. The foreman, Horn (Matt Dillon in his third collaboration with a French female director in six years, after Proxima ...

  Pictured :  Katya ( Maiia Pleshkevich , right) is comforted by her grandmother in a scene from the film, ' Short Summer ', co-written (with Mikhail Bushkov ) and directed by Nastia Korkia . Still courtesy of Totem / Film Festival Gent .  There is a kind of Eastern European film made with Western European financial support in which the camera is placed at a discreet distance from the subject. The intention is to present unmediated reality as ‘something that cannot be helped’. Things will always be bad. Agency is an illusion. These films are aimed at a foreign audience, since local audiences would derive little comfort in them. They perpetuate a stereotype, namely that Eastern European countries are characterised by phlegmatic fatalism. We identify certain behaviours in the films but are offered no pathology, no explanation for particular actions. These films offer a puzzle to be solved. The viewer is asked to fill in the gaps. Short Summer , directed and co-written (...

Pictured : Holly ( Benedetta Porcaroli , left) and Arabella ( Lucrezia Guglielmino , right) at a chapel where the young girl makes money as a flower girl in the quirky Italian comedy, ' Il Rapimento di Arabella'  (' The Kidnapping of Arabella '), writer-director Caroline Cavalli 's entertaining sophomore feature. Still courtesy of Piper Film  (Italy) Italian writer-director Carolina Cavalli makes films about headstrong young women who act as if dealt a special hand. Amanda , her debut, featured one such woman. The Kidnapping of Arabella ( Il Rapimento di Arabella ), her follow-up, has two. Holly (Benedetta Porcaroli) believes that eight-year-old Arabella (Lucrezia Guglielmino) whom she meets in the parking lot of Taco King, is herself having fallen through time and space to provide the opportunity for a do-over. Holly can follow-up on the opportunity of being a ballerina, something she avoided aged eight, pretending to affect a limp. When Holly sees the child simil...

  Pictured :  Nicole ( DeWanda Wise ) poses a romantic conundrum for blocked writer  Roger ( André Holland ) in the urban love triangle confection, ' Love, Brooklyn ', written by Paul Zimmerman  and directed by Rachael Abigail Holder . Still courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment (US) There is one scene in the African American urban professional drama, Love, Brooklyn , that I enjoyed. In it, the protagonist’s best friend, Alan (Roy Wood, Jr) is sitting on bench outside a coffee shop holding his morning beverage when he is approached by a woman in a red dress, also with coffee in hand. ‘You’re without your friend today,’ she remarks. ‘Sorry?’ responds Alan, characterising the way that people don’t immediately respond to the question put in front of them that is a hallmark of director Rachael Abigail Holder’s debut feature. The woman offers a qualifier. ‘Yes,’ responds Alan, referring to the absent columnist Roger (André Holland) who rides a bicycle and is torn between tw...