BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL

I have had mixed results with the BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL.

DOES YOUR SOUL HAVE A COLD? was a documentary about people suffering from depression in Japan. The subjects all impressed with their honesty, bravery and dignity, which is more than can be said for the film maker, who throughout kept making snide insinuations in a pathetic attempt to prove his Michael Moorish credentials – he desperately wanted to have an anti-American, anti-Pharmaceutical Companies agenda, but produced nothing to back up the little snide comments he threw in from off screen. Did the woman who learnt about depression through a website know that it was sponsored by Glaxo? No she didn’t. But so what? The question is whether or not the website was misleading , but this wasn’t asked. Similarly some of the sufferers said they were now much worse if they stopped taking the medication, but there was no clinical analysis of whether they were on the right medication and whether it was helping them There may well be legitimate questions to be asked, such as whether doctors are too quick to prescribe drugs, whether marketing encourages more people to think of themselves as depressed, but this film had no expert of clinical viewpoint and hence was manipulative and underhand.

MID-AFTERNOON BARKS was a peculiar film from China. Three parts in which not a lot happens to a variety of small town / rural people. Little dialogue, even less action, save for the mysterious telegraph poles which featured in all three parts, a symbol of changing China. I went because it sounded a bit like Apichatpong 'Joe' Weerasethakul’s work, but it wasn’t really. There was no particular resonance, nor an overall sense of mystery or relationship, between the parts. It was enjoyable if a bit slow, idiosyncratic, charming, and a little flat.

THE PERCIPIENT IMAGE was a selection of short 16mm experimental avant-garde films. The first 4 were totally silent leaving everyone in the cinema a little uncomfortable, especially me, tormented by gurgling stomachs, aqueous swallowing noises and a ticking watch from the row behind! Lots of grainy close ups of shadows and plants, but noting really beautiful or breathtaking.

Best of the bunch by far was FAR NORTH, a dark folk-tale filmed on Svalbard (Spitsbergen) and starring Michelle Yeoh and Sean Bean. A mother and her adopted daughter struggle to survive in the frozen wastelands. One day, a mysterious walks across the ice. There was much that felt familiar about the film, until its final descent into the heart of darkness. In hindsight there was a sinister thread running throughout the film, but it stays just below the surface until the end. Unbelievably beautiful cinematography.