CONTENTS Page 3
Editorial
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Irreplaceable All the people in this countryside area can count on Jean-Pierre, the doctor who heals and reassures them, but now he is sick. What are they to do without him?
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Silence th In the 17 century, two Jesuit priests face violence and persecution when they travel to Japan to locate their mentor and propagate Catholicism.
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Favourite Actors of 2016 Six actors which MbM consider to be worthy of an award for their outstanding performance in a film viewed in 2016.
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Favourite Actresses of 2016 Six actresses which MbM consider to be worthy of an award for their outstanding performance in a film viewed in 2016.
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Favourite Directors of 2016 Six directors which MbM consider to be worthy of an award for their outstanding direction of a film viewed in 2016.
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FILMFEST FOLLOWER – SUNDANCE. MbM recommendations from the scheduled screenings at the festival.
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Favourite Films of 2016 Eleven films which MbM considered to be the best films viewed in 2016 to have reached and set the highest standard in the art of film.
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EXTRAS – DVD BLU-RAY th MbM Recommendation 50 Anniversary Edition of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
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(Poster) The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
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(Poster) Silence
PHOTO CREDITS: STUDIO CANAL:1,4,6,7,8,10,11,16,24,32. LIONSGATE: 14,15,17,26,28,29. SODA PICTURES:13,16,25,27. STUDIO GHIBLI: 26,27. MUBI: 12. SONY PICTURES RELEASING: 17,28.
ACKNOWLEGEMENTS We would like to thank the following for their help and assistance in providing images. PremierComms.Com Hamilton Arroyo and Paige Blackwood at Studio Canal.
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EDITORIAL Welcome 2017! MbM is hoping that it will produce an excellent year of movies that equal the quality of 2016 with exceptional films like *La La Land, Arrival, Mustang, Paterson, *The Red Turtle, Sing Street, *Their Finest, When Marnie Was There, Your Name. On the release schedule, we will see: Toni Erdmann, The Great Wall, It’s Only the End of the World, Rules Don’t Apply, The Handmaiden, The Zookeeper’s Wife, Dunkirk and the one film that looks like being the ‘film of 2017’ – Blade Runner 2049, directed by Denis Villeneuve and starring Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford. The film fast-winds to thirty years after the original K (Harrison Ford) disappears and the new K (Ryan Gosling) goes to find him. But of course the first film to get excited about seeing is this month’s release and this issue’s cover feature review Irreplaceable. There also a review of Silence, starring: Liam Neeson. And in retrospect we look at our favourite films, actors, actresses, and directors of the year. Film Fest Follower is back with a rundown of the best films of the Sundance Film Festival which opens in Utah on the 19th to the 29th. Once again we offer a fun-filled dive into the exciting world of film to help you choose what to see at the cinema. Plus, we have not forgotten EXTRAS which highlights DVDs and Blu-Rays and the release of the Special Anniversary Edition of Jacques Demy’s masterpiece The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, starring Catharine Deneuve. Astute readers will notice a reiterating thread through this issue between directors Jacques Demy and Damien Chazelle and their films The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and La La Land but one should also take a look at Demy’s The Young Girls of Rochefort which followed on the success of ‘Cherbourg’, as this too was a tribute to Hollywood musicals and featured screen legend Gene Kelly. The story centres on twin sisters played by Catherine Deneuve and her sister Francoise Dorleac. Tired of their humdrum existence, dream of finding success and romance in Paris. The superb ensemble, also featuring Danielle Darrieux, Michel Piccoli, Jacques Perrin, George Chakiris and Grover Dale, weave and wander around the town, looking for and just missing the love of their lives. With a plot of pure Shakespearean farce, witty dialogue and lyrics by Demy, and a magnificent jazz score by three-times Academy Award winner Michel Legrand, The Young Girls of Rochefort is an effervescent celebration of life and the ultimate feel-good movie. Tragically, Francoise Dorleac, endowed with enviable versatility and an exciting future, was not to happen, as her life was cut short at the age of twenty-five when she was killed in a car accident. Do also study Demy’s first feature Lola, starring Anouk Aimee, which anticipates his two later masterpieces. It is a fairy-tale romance. *Reviewed in the November London Film Festival Special Edition.
Enjoy the read Brian Mills Magazine Editor
Paul Ridler Magazine Designer
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IRREPLACEABLE Directed by Thomas Lilti Starring: Francois Cluzet. Marianne Denicourt. Christophe Odent. Patrick Deschamps. Guy Faucher. Margaux Fabre. Julien Lucas. Yohann Goetzmann. The ducks tried to attack me. - Natalie They’re ganders, not ducks. You must humiliate them. Stick their beaks up their arse. Really deep up their arse. It’s risky but well worth it. - Jean-Pierre It’s ok. I get it. - Natalie What? - Jean-Pierre
All the people in this countryside area, can count on Jean-Pierre, the doctor who auscultates them, heals and reassures them day and night, seven days a week. Now Jean-Pierre is sick, so he sees Natalie, a young doctor, coming from the hospital to assist him. But will she adapt to this new life and be able to replace the man they believed to be irreplaceable? A truthful adage in life is to do what you know which definitely extends to the writer and director of this film: Thomas Lilti, whose previous films have been Hippocrates, Diary of a French Doctor, and Les Yeux Bandes, as he is a general practitioner, as well as a filmmaker, having studied medicine and showed some of his personal experiences in Hippocrates. In Irreplaceable, Lilti turns his attention to a rural practice, while retaining similar themes concerning the importance of experience over qualification. Lone doctor Jean-Pierre Werner (Francois Cluzet) is shown to be every bit as overworked as his big city equivalents, although he doesn’t view it like that. He has spent a lifetime stitching himself into the fabric of his community, viewing his patients as individuals rather than a sum of their ailments. Illness is no respecter of authority, but when Werner finds himself diagnosed with a brain tumour he is unwilling to take a step back, if anything throwing himself even further into his work.
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His consultant, refusing to take no for an answer, sends medic Natalie Delezia (Marianne Denicourt) fresh out from a city hospital environment, to help him out, but her welcome is, inevitably, cold. This classic scenario of experience versus inexperience, male versus female, town versus countryside feels fresh because Lilti starts by building the characters and then hanging some incidents around them, rather than the other way around. His co-writer Baya Kasmi, like Werner, pay attention to the minor, but crucial details of community life, exemplified by Werner’s packed and bustling waiting room or the personality politics of a town hall meeting. The fact that they have chosen older protagonists also helps. Delezia and Werner both have plenty of experience of life and that makes their reactions and interactions less heated, more meaningful and more evenly balanced than it would if Delezia was much younger. There is also the merest frisson between them which deepens the drama but never becomes a device. Doctors interrupt every 22 seconds, Werner tells Delezia as he admonishes her for missing a diagnosis because she didn’t listen thoroughly enough. Lilti works to the same rules, letting his characters simply exist in a space without having to constantly speak. This is perfect for Cluzet, always a thoughtful actor. Here, in a scene in which he realises the extent of the tumour’s impact while eating dinner, we can not only see the physical problem it presents but feel his thought process as he considers its implications. Comedy is also well-handled, gently reminding us of the more absurd aspects of humanity without getting in the way of the more serious central themes concerning the way in which Werner may be his own worst enemy. Francois Cluzet is one of France’s most famous actors. His skill as an actor is a joy to watch and the following films should be in every film lover’s collection. Little White Lies. As Max. A near-fatal accident leaves one friend in hospital while the rest go on their annual vacation.
Tell No One. As Dr Alex Beck he is left unconscious after his wife and childhood sweetheart, Margot is brutally murdered. 8 years on and still unaware of the truth, Alex receives an anonymous email. Clicking on the link he sees a woman’s face in a crowd – Margot’s face. The Intouchables. As Philippe, an unlikely friendship develops between an aristocratic quadriplegic and his streetwise ex-con carer.
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Jean-Pierre (Francois Cluzet) in Irreplaceable.
Natalie (Marianne Denicourt) in Irreplaceable. 6
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Jean-Pierre (Francois Cluzet) in Irreplaceable.
Jean-Pierre (Francois Cluzet) and L’Agriculteur (Michel Ridou) in Irreplaceable.
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SILENCE Directed by Martin Scorsese. Starring: Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, Liam Neeson, Tadanobu Asano, Ciaran Hinds, Issei Ogata. I pray I am lost. Am I just praying to silence? - Rodrigues The story of two catholic missionaries who face the ultimate test of faith when they travel to Japan in search of their missing mentor – at a time when Catholicism was outlawed and their presence forbidden. The film starts with a long moment of actual silence, and embraces silence throughout its running time, or something akin to silence. Scorsese and co-writer Jay Cocks ask countless questions that elude answers, let alone easy ones, and DP Rodrigo Prieto largely forgoing the whips and tracking shots one associates with Scorsese, teases a terse sense of desperation from landscapes shrouded by fog and faces wracked by guilt. This film has been a passion project for Scorsese and has been in his mind in pre-production for twenty-five years. Here at last it has made and released to disciplined followers of the director who worship at his throne. For others, it may prove a challenge to sit through for over two hours and expect to genuflect its presence. It is slow and solemn but it rewards patience with a transcendent epilogue that departs from the main character’s point-of-view to find a glimmer of meaning. Being that the film is set in Japan, one can reflect on Scorsese’s influences such as Mizogushi’s Ugetsu, which led to the films of Kurosawa and his obsession with Japanese films. What was Scorsese’s visual approach to Silence? Are there Japanese films in my mind? Then it would not be authentic. It has to be how I see it, not how I think Japanese cinema would look or a film shot in Japan in the 17th century. The camera sitting on the floor of the huts. I was really taken by the landscape. I started visualising differently, which was designing elements within the frame: two shot, one shot, medium, this sort of thing. I don’t know the location. I haven’t seen it yet.
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The film has been adapted from the novel by Shusaku Endo, a powerful story about crisis of faith, human courage and weakness and the arrogance of colonialism. Andrew Garfield, who plays Rodrigues, has already received a lot of praise for his performance in Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge, equally deserves plaudits for his Father Rodrigues role in Silence, which forces him to emote the torture of contemplating the dilemma of publicly renouncing God to save lives. Also, there is a fine spirited performance by Ogata as the feared Inquisitor. There are many riveting scenes: when the two priests wait to board a junk vessel at a fisherman’s hangout, the proprietor offers Kichijiro, a matted drunk who says he is not Christian, as their guide. This rough start does not bode well, but he leads them to disembark on the banks of Tomogi where Christianity thrives in secrecy. Village elder Ichizo and despite the danger, gathers the faithful, and insists upon sheltering Rodrigues and Garrpe (Adam Driver) in a coal shack on a hill. The villagers are gifted with Rodrigues rosary beads while he, in turn, accepts a small rough carving of Christ on the cross. Early on in the film, we see Ferreira (Liam Neeson), hands bound, being led along the rocky coast where the faithful are crucified by a hot spring, the Japanese dribbling scalding water over them to lengthen their pain. Rodrigues witnesses Ichizo and an old villager Mokichi crucified in the rising surf. It takes Mokichi four days to die. All of these faithful have been asked to step on a fumie, a copper block with a raised image of Christ. Their refusal means torture and death.
When Rodrigues is betrayed and taken to Nagasaki to be jeered at in the streets, then imprisoned across from Christian peasants, the fumie is brought out daily and Rodrigues must watch as people are dragged away, one beheaded in front of him. When he’s told he is going to be brought ‘to see something,’ it means a painful reunion with Garrpe and more death. Finally brought to witness the fate of his neighbouring imprisoned flock, Rodrigues sees them suspended, their heads below ground, slowly drained of blood from small incisions in their necks. As the fumie is once more placed before him, Rodrigues finally hears God speak to him. The film’s closing image is amazing. Silence questions the meaning of faith and goes to unexpected places. The historical account will be of interest even to those who are not coming from the same place as the director. It is a work rich in artistry and is majestic and never falters. The running time could be off-putting to some filmgoers as it pushes its length to nearly three hours, but Scorsese uses Rodrigo Prieto as his Director of Photography, as he did in The Wolf of Wall Street and consequently the film is enriched with the visual splendour of violent coasts(the film was shot in Taiwan), mysteriously foggy ocean crossings and the grandeur of Catholic edifices, but also close-ups, often in dimly lit interiors, that convey the pain, fear and faith of the Christians, the upper handed wiliness of the Japanese Production design and costuming by Dante Ferretti, rigorously researched. Thelma Schoonmaker edited the film.
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Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Inoue (Issei Ogata) in Silence.
Ferreira (Liam Neeson) in Silence . 10
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Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) in Silence.
Ferreira (Liam Neeson) in Silence.
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Favourite Actors Of 2016 Actors which MbM consider to be worthy of an award for their outstanding performance in a film viewed in 2016.
No.6. Jarkko Lahti for The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki.
No.5. Jeremy Renner for Arrival.
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No.4. Matthias Schoenaerts for Disorder.
No.3. Casey Affleck for Manchester By the Sea.
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No.2. Adam Driver for Paterson.
No.1 Ryan Gosling for La La Land.
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Favourite Actresses Of 2016 Actresses which MbM consider to be worthy of an award for their outstanding performance in a film viewed in 2016.
No.6. Lucy Boynton for Sing Street.
No.5. Gemma Arterton for Their Finest.
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No.4. Golshifteh Farahani for Paterson.
No.3. Michelle Williams for Manchester By the Sea.
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No.2. Amy Adams for Arrival.
No.1. Emma Stone for La La Land.
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Favourite Directors Of 2016 Directors which MbM consider worthy of an award for their outstanding direction of a film viewed in 2016.
No.6. Michael Dudok de Wit for The Red Turtle.
No.5. John Carney for Sing Street. 18
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No.4. Kenneth Lonergan for Manchester By the Sea.
No.3. Jim Jarmusch for Paterson .
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No.2. Denis Villeneuve for Arrival.
No.1. Damien Chazelle for La La Land. 20
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FILMFEST FOLLOWER
SUNDANCE Jan 19 - 29 2017
MBM RECOMMENDS
PREMIERES THE DISCOVERY Directed by Charlie McDowell. Starring: Jason Segel. Rooney Mara. Robert Redford. In a world where the afterlife has just been scientifically proven – resulting in millions of people taking their own lives to get there – comes this love story.
THE INCREDIBLE JESSICA JAMES Directed by Jim Strouse. Starring: Jessica Williams. Chris O’Dowd. Jessica James, an aspiring NYC playwright, is struggling to get over a recent break-up. She sees a light at the end of the tunnel when she meets the recently divorced Boone. Together, they discover how to make it through the tough times while realising they like each other a lot.
THE LAST WORD Directed by Mark Pellington. Starring: Shirley MacLaine. Amanda Seyfried. Harriett is a retired businesswoman who tries to control everything around her. When she decides to write her own obituary, a young journalist takes up the task of finding out the truth, resulting in a life-altering friendship.
MANIFESTO Directed by Julian Rosefeldt. Starring: Cate Blanchett. Can history’s art manifestos apply to contemporary society? An homage to the twentieth century’s most impassioned artistic statements and innovators, from Futurists and Dadaists to Pop Art, Fluxus, Lars von Trier and Jim Jarmusch, this series of re-enactments performed by Cate Blanchett explores these declarations’ performative components and political significance.
MARJORIE PRIME Directed by Michael Almereyda. Starring: Jon Hamm. Geena Davis. Lois Smith. In the near future – a time of artificial intelligence – 86-year-old Marjorie has a handsome new companion who looks like her deceased husband and is programmed to feed the story of her life back to her. What would we remember, and what would we forget, if given the chance?
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THE POLKA KING
Directed by Maya Forbes. Starring: Jack Black. Jenny Slate. Jason Schwartzman. Based on the remarkable true story of the world’s only known Polka Ponzi scheme, this mix of comedy and tragedy is about Jan Lewan, a Polish immigrant who believed in the American Dream. But with big dreams came big mistakes for the man who became the ‘King of Pennsylvania Polka.’
REBEL IN THE RYE Directed by Danny Strong. Starring: Nicolas Hoult. Kevin Spacey. Sarah Paulson. This portrait of the life and mind of reclusive author J.D. Salinger goes from the bloody front lines of World War II to his early rejections and the PTSD-fueled writer’s block that led to his iconic novel “The Catcher in the Rye.”
REMEMORY Directed by Mark Palansky. Starring: Peter Dinklage. Julia Ormond. A visionary inventor found dead. A machine that can record people’s memories. A man haunted by the past. This noir mystery explores the ways in which memory defines the present.
SIDNEY HALL Directed by Shawn Christensen Starring: Logan Lerman. Elle Fanning. Kyle Chandler. Over the course of 12 years, and three stages of life, Sidney falls in love, writes a book of a generation and then disappears without a trace.
WHERE IS KYRA? Directed by Andrew Dosunmu. Starring: Michelle Pfeiffer. Keifer Sutherland. Pushed to the brink after losing her job, a woman struggles to survive. As the months pass and her troubles deepen, she embarks on a perilous and mysterious journey that threatens to usurp her life.
WILSON Directed by Craig Johnson. Starring: Woody Harrelson. Laura Dern. Judy Geer. Wilson, a lonely, neurotic and hilariously honest middle-aged misanthrope, reunites with his estranged wife and gets a shot at happiness when he learns he has a teenage daughter he has never met. In his uniquely outrageous and slightly twisted way, he sets out to connect with her.
WIND RIVER
Directed by Taylor Sheridan. Starring: Jeremy Renner. Elizabeth Olsen. An FBI agent teams with the town’s veteran game tracker to investigate a murder that occurred on a Native American reservation.
SPOTLIGHT FRANTZ
Directed by Francois Ozon. Starring: Pierre Niney. Paula Bear. Ernst Stotzner. In a small German town after World War One, Anna mourns daily at the grave of her fiancé, killed in battle in France. One day a young Frenchman, Adrien, also lays flowers at the grave. His presence, so soon after the German defeat, ignites passions.
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LADY MACBETH Directed by William Oldroyd. Starring: Florence Pugh. Cosmo Jarvis. Paul Hilton. Rural England, 1865: Katharine is stifled by her loveless marriage to a bitter man and his unforgiving family. When she embarks on a passionate affair with a stableman from the estate, the force unleashed inside her is so powerful that she will stop at nothing to get what she wants.
THEIR FINEST Directed by Lone Scherfig. Starring: Gemma Arterton. Sam Claflin. Bill Nighy. During the 1940 London Blitz, untried screenwriter Catrin struggles to find her voice amidst war, as she and a makeshift cast work under fire to create a film to lift the nation’s spirits – and inspire America to join the war.
US DRAMATIC COMPETITION BAND AID Directed by Zoe Lister-Jones. Starring: Zoe Lister-Jones. Adam Pally. Fred Arrisen. A couple who can’t stop fighting embark on a last-ditch effort to save their marriage: turning their fights into songs and starting a band.
GOLDEN EXISTS Directed by Alex Ross Perry. Starring: Emily Browning. Adam Horovitz The arrival of a young foreign girl disrupts the lives and emotional balances of two Brooklyn families.
THE HERO Directed by Brett Haley. Starring: Sam Elliott. Laura Predon. Lee, a former western film icon, is living a comfortable existence lending his voice to advertisements and smoking weed. After receiving a lifetime achievement award and unexpected news, Lee re-examines his past, while a chance meeting with a sardonic comic has him looking to the future.
TO THE BONE Directed by Marti Noxon. Starring: Lily Collins. Keanu Reeves. Carrie Preston. A young woman is dealing with anorexia. She meets an unconventional doctor who challenges her to face her condition and embrace life.
NEXT SECTION A GHOST STORY Directed by David Lowery. Starring: Casey Affleck. Rooney Mara. This is a story of a ghost and the house he haunts.
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Favourite Films of 2016 Eleven films which MbM considered to be the best films viewed in 2016 to have reached and set the highest standards in the art of film.
No.11. VICTORIA.
No.10. KNIGHT OF CUPS. 24
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No.9. DISCORDER.
No.8. MUSTANG.
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No.7. THEIR FINEST.
No.6. WHEN MARNIE WAS THERE.
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No.5. THE RED TURTLE.
No.4. PATERSON.
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No.3. SING STREET.
No.2. ARRIVAL.
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No.1. LA LA LAND.
The choice of the number one film seen by MbM during 2016 came with a cinematic pedigree of critical acclaim from every film festival at which it was screened. It was the one film that everyone wanted to see and it did not disappoint. Avid cinemagoers in the UK will have already reserved the date of its general release on the 12th of January to see it.
Damien Chazelle has followed “Whiplash” with another masterpiece and he is undoubtedly the best film director in the business and one can only imagine what can be expected from him in the future. In “La La Land” Chazelle pays homage to the Hollywood musicals and sees Ryan Gosling as a jazz pianist and with Emma Stone dancing and singing. If anyone is cynical about the future of cinema, then this film will negate those worries while it is in the safe hands of filmmakers like Damien Chazelle.
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EXTRAS DVDS/BLU-RAYS MbM's Recommendation.
50th Anniversary Edition
THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG Directed by Jacques Demy. Starring: Catherine Deneuve. Nino Castelnuovo. Anne Vernon. Marc Michel. Described by director Jacques Demy as ‘a film in song’, the visually intoxicating THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG pays homage to the Hollywood musical in this masterpiece of French New Wave cinema. Guy Foucher (Nino Castelnuovo), a 20-year-old French auto mechanic, has fallen in love with 17-year-old Genevieve Emery (Catherine Deneuve), an employee in her widowed mother’s chic but financially embattled umbrella shop. On the evening before Guy is to leave for a two-year tour of combat in Algeria, the pair share a passionate night. Genevieve becomes pregnant and then must choose between waiting for Guy’s return or accepting an attractive offer of marriage from a wealthy diamond merchant (Marc Michel). THE UMBRELLAS OF CHEBOURG is the film that inspired Damien Chazelle to make LA LA LAND, a homage to the Hollywood musical, starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone.
EXTRAS SPECIAL FEATURES *Virginie Ledoyen on The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. *Geoff Andrew on The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. *The World of Jacques Demy – 90 min documentary. *Once Upon A Time – The Umbrellas of Cherbourg -50 min documentary. *The Restoration of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. *Audio Interview with Catharine Deneuve. *Stills Gallery. *Original 1963 Trailer. *2013 Trailer.
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