Festival clubs see page 57 0 Festival art see page 72
DOCUMENTARY . Ubuhle Bembali *** Keeping Zulu culture alive
With little in the way of work, Zulu labourers stuck in South African hostels often have to find their own sense of purpose. Emanuell Bidou’s documentary examines the frustrations and deprivations of the labourers as they prepare for a regular music festival, an event that keeps both their culture alive and their souls intact. As one of the musicians says, at least then they're off the bottle and kept out of trouble. Simultaneously a celebration of the music and an examination of a curtailed existence, Bidou's brief 50 minute film has an ambitiously interwoven texture. (Tony McKibbin)
I Ubuhle Bembali, Fi/mhouse 2, 23 Aug, 3.30pm; Fi/mhouse 3, 24 Aug, 6pm, £7 (£4.50).
MELODRAMA
Life Doesn't Scare Me (La vie ne me fait pas peur) ** Difficult teen coming-of-age tale Elliptical melodrama might be the most appropriate term to describe 36-year- old Nomi Lvovsky’s coming-of-age film. This study of a group of teenage friends eschews the sort of
bittersweet, understated moments, for broader, darker concerns - frequent humiliation, sexual abuse and identity crisis. But it doesn’t care to provide much of a psychological framework for the characters' behaviour. Not such a problem if the scenes had the insight of other recent French elliptical ensembles: Ma Vie Sexue/le or The Age Of Possibilities. Here, though, the scenes are often left stranded, with neither enough observational acuny to stand on their own, or enough context to give them perspective.
(Tony McKibbin)
I Life Doesn’t Scare Me, Fi'lmhouse l, 20 Aug, 2.30pm, Lumiere, 23 Aug, 7pm, £7 (£4.50).
EXPERIMENTAL Wl!d Blue: Notes For Several Voices *erir
Investigation of human atrocities The irony of having a beautiful montage of images dealing with the ugliest of human impulses doesn’t go
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unnoticed by Belgian filmmaker Thierry Knauff. Over seven years he's compiled images suggesting some of the world’s most horrendous atrocities, and set them to narration by pragmatic female voices. The torture methods of African militias, the denial of the Holocaust and the effacement of art in India are all suggested in vivid black and white, while the stoical voices of women comment on the futility of violence. By no means an enjoyable film to watch, this is however a rewarding and thought-provoking piece of art. (Catherine Bromley)
I Wild Blue: Notes For Several Voices, Fi‘lmhouse 3, 78 Aug, 9pm, Fi/mhouse 2, 22 Aug, 3.30pm, £7 (£4.50).
DOCUMENTARY
Without Lying Down * Subtitled: Frances Marion And The Power Of Women In Hollywood
A lumpen and rather pointless documentary which should be av0ided at all costs. In capable hands, the story of Frances Marion might provide much insight into women’s role in the birth of cinema. She was, after all, the highest paid scriptwriter in Hollywood from the days of Silent film as Mary Pickford's excluswe scribe, going on to provide vehicles for every star, from Garbo to Gish. Here, however, Bridget Terry dwells on the lovelife and looks of the potential feminist icon, roping in a bunch of no-name hacks to provide insight. The infrequent highlights come in the form of Marion's own pithy bon mots. (Jack Mottraml
I Without Lying Down, Lumiere, 20 Aug, noon, £7 (£4.50). (Ticketprice also includes a screening of the Marion-scripted The Scarlet Letter.) DRAMA The Low Down *‘k'k
Flashy but pretentious twentysomething drama
This is the debut feature film from award-Winning music video director Jamie Thraves, and while he obviously has some talent behind the camera, it’s not enough to prevent this strictly average film being a tad on the pedestrian side. The story follows twentysomething Frank (Aidan Gillen) as he drifts into growing up, settling down and buying a flat. Throughout,
Marc Singer spent several years documenting the lives of the homeless living underground In New York City for Dark Days. 01 Shadow provides the score for a film that’s changed these folk's lives. Cameo 1, 23 Aug, 8pm, 25 Aug, 3pm, £7 (£4.50).
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Like all good road movies, Aberdeen is about what happens en route to its destination
DRAMA Aberdeen **** Emotionally engaging road movie
Europe doesn't have a good track record when it comes to road movies, but this Scottish/Norwegian co-production goes a long way to setting that straight. Helen (Charlotte Rampling) is dying of cancer. Her final wish is to be reunited with her estranged husband, Tomas (Stellan Skarsgard), and so she emotionally blackmails her estranged daughter, Kaisa (Lena Headey) into taking a trip to Norway to bring her father home to Aberdeen. But Tomas is a morose alcoholic and Kaisa no better, bingeing on cocaine and casual sex when not earning promotions in her London law firm. And so a simple round trip is complicated by inebriation — requiring the pair to travel by road instead of air — and the emotional fallout between a father and daughter who haven’t spent time together in twenty years.
Like all good road movies, Aberdeen is about what happens en route to its destination. In this case the constantly shifting power balance between father and daughter - which reveals some painful home truths — provides l-lans Petter Moland's film with plenty of fuel. Keeping things on course are superb performances from Headey and Skarsgard (and a great cameo from the ever-reliable Ian Hart); their bittersweet rapport provides Aberdeen with real heart and soul. (Miles Fielder)
I Aberdeen, UGC, 23 Aug, 8.30pm, £7 (£4.50).
Thraves uses lots of music video techniques (still images, sIo—mo, out of synch dialoguel which qUickly gets pretty irritating, and this, added to the ponderously-paced and self-indulgent script, makes for a film which appears more than a little pretentious.
(Doug Johnstonei
I The Low Down, Cameo i, 79 Aug, 70pm, 25 Aug, 70.30pm, £7 (£4.50).
DRAMA
Human Resources (Ressources humaines) ****
Truthful working class drama
The SUbJQCt matter of Laurent Contet’s film might not set the box office on fire: Human Rescurces is about the impact of the 35-hour working week on a small French town. Neither does it yield anything particularly fresh from its Cinematically mundane tOpic. Jalil Lespert is the busmess student returning home to work in the same company as his father. Only problem is his father's a blue collar grafter whereas Lespert’s a suit who’s expect to side with the dirty tricks of the management. But there is enough truth in the telling (the cast is made up
of local non-profeSSionalsi for the film to transcend the cliched premise. (Tony McKibbinl
I Human ReSOurces, Fi/mhouse i, 79 Aug, 4.30pm, 26 Aug, 70pm, £7 (£4.50).
DRAMA
Some Voices *Hr
Uneven tale of schizophrenia Released from psychiatric hospital, Daniel Craig helps out at his moody, over-protective brother Davrd Morrisey's cafe/restaurant, and starts a relationship with the wild, irresponsible Kelly ivlacdonald. But things start to unravel when he stops taking the pills that control his schizophrenia. The emotional heart of the film lies in the difficult, volatile relationship between the two brothers, so the film tends to lose focus whenever they’re not on screen together. Even so, director Simon Cellan Jones makes a confident, if slightly uneven feature film debut, his adaptation of Joe Penhall’s stage play using telling images (spiral crop Circlesi to express Craig’s increasineg tenuous hold on reality. (Nigel Floydi I Some Voices, Cameo i, 27 Aug, 8pm, Cameo 2, 22 Aug, 9.30pm, £7 (£4.50).
17—24 Aug 2000 THE lIST FESTIVAL GUIDE 69
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