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DAILY GUIDE FRIDAY 19 FEBRUARY
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Cutting Lines Cynthia Beat explores the fading boundary of the Berlin Wall in her two documentaries, which open the Glasgow Short Film Festival tonight Text: Gail Tolley In 1988 filmmaker Cynthia Beatt, along with actor Tilda Swinton and sound artist Simon Fisher Turner, cycled the route of the Berlin Wall, documenting the unique nature of one of the world’s most famous urban divides. Last year the group returned to the city to retrace their journey, ten years after the fall of the Wall, and observed the changed landscape on both sides of the Wall. The resulting two films, Cycling the Frame and The Invisible Frame, will be shown together as part of the opening night of the Glasgow Short Film Festival and will be introduced by the director herself. The CineSkinny caught up with Cynthia Beatt before the festival for a quick chat about the project: At GFF you will show The Invisible Frame first and then Cycling the Frame after - what were your reasons for showing them in this order? Each film is interesting in itself, but when shown together I feel it necessary and desirable to create new tensions. In The Invisible Frame, Tilda reflects on the sense of the Wall being more present now that it is gone. This is one of many aspects that is illuminated by showing Cycling the Frame after The Invisible Frame. What was the one thing that stood out for you when retracing the old boundary? Was there an overriding emotion that you came away with after the experience? It’s hard to choose. Perhaps the elation of riding the bike for long stretches in the summer, circumventing half of the city, while absorbing an enormous amount of thought-provoking
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imagery and information. There was a moment, however, which remains vivid - I stood on a hill in the south of Berlin where we had filmed 21 years before and could clearly see the long white line of the Wall cutting through the landscape, and this time, although the line was still marked by the meeting of fields with trees, I felt a sense of vertigo, of falling towards the endless expanse of open territory that reached western Europe and the Atlantic Ocean and further. When one has experienced being cordoned in for so long the effect of release is enormous, though I imagine that few people consider the psychological workings of this. Little of the wall remains today do you think it’s a concern that if the concrete structure is removed from sight then what it symbolises might also slip from our thoughts? Absolutely. That is precisely what happens. It is also what most people want. It is shocking to consider that after 20 years the large majority of people under 25-30 have absolutely no experience of the Wall and therefore no knowledge of what it meant. There is one memorial at the Bernauer Strasse (although there are neighbours who wish it torn down) with a very good information centre and the recent establishment of a memorial at the former Marienfelde reception center and transit camp for people fleeing the German Democratic Republic (1.35 million people passed through it). The move to reflect on and document the history of the Wall and the partition of Germany is slowly gaining momentum. CCA, Fri 19 Feb at 19:30
2>> FEATURE: CATHERINE BREILLAT We delve into the world of Catherine Breillat’s Bluebeard. 3>> REVIEWS Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Hidden Diary Cuckoo
4>> LISTINGS Comprehensive guide to what’s going on at the Festival 4>>WHAT’S NEW ONLINE? Follow us online on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. 4>> PRIZES Win 2 tickets to Rookies the teen box office hit from Japan.
THE CINESKINNY Produced by The Skinny magazine in association with the Glasgow Film Festival. EDITOR Gail Tolley EDITORIAL Becky Bartlett ASSISTANT DESIGNER Emma Faulkner
GFF BOX OFFICE Order tickets from the box office at www.glasgowfilmfestival.org.uk or call 0141 332 6535 or visit Glasgow Film Theatre 12 Rose Street, Glasgow, G3 6RB info@glasgowfilmfestival.org.uk
No Sex PleaseIt’s Catherine Breillat
Controversial filmmaker Catherine Breillat takes a different approach to shock tactics with her latest feature, Bluebeard Text: Jenny Munro PORN AUTEUR, militant feminist, man-hater (or even woman-hater), shameless provocateur: countless labels have been attached to French filmmaker Catherine Breillat over the years, but none really fit. More than anything, Breillat’s work is discussed in terms of its jarringly graphic sex scenes, with GQ magazine describing her breakthrough film Romance as “sex, sex and, well, more sex.” It will come as a surprise, then, that her latest feature, Bluebeard, doesn’t contain even one sex scene. For over 30 years, Breillat has shocked censors and the French establishment. Though much of her early work remains unseen in Britain, she came to international attention in 1999 with the harrowing tale of one woman’s sexual masochism that was Romance. Ten years before the extreme body-horror of Lars von Trier’s Antichrist, Breillat demonstrated absolute dedication to interrogating the human body, the extremes of its sensations and just how much viewers could take. Breillat’s work has consistently been labelled “auteur porn,” not helped by her status as director of the first widely shown film in Britain to feature an erect penis (the aforementioned Romance), her repeated casting of porn superstar Rocco Siffredi and staging of reputedly unsimulated sex scenes. It has always seemed, however, that Breillat shows sex less to offend public morals than to explore how the body can be used on screen, and the sensory effect it has on audiences. She breaks taboos in several ways: watching an unsimulated sex scene, viewers are immediately thrown from a conventional cinema-viewing position – we stop seeing two characters and instead see the actors. Breillat traverses the boundaries between fictional characters and real actors, between cinema and pornography. Since 2000, she has continued to push actors’ bodies, and audience’s perceptions, to extremes with films including A ma soeur!, Anatomie de l’enfer and Une Vieille Maitresse. And so to Bluebeard, which may unjustly attract more attention for its lack of sex than for its unsettling sensory universe. Based on Charles Perrault’s folk tale, Bluebeard is Breillat’s second fictional adaptation, and second period piece (Une Vielle Maitresse was based on a 19th century
French novel). The film depicts two teenage sisters in 17th Century France whose mother seeks to marry them off after their father’s death. The sisters are invited to the castle of the much feared Lord Bluebeard, famed for his inexplicably coloured beard, not to mention the mysterious disappearances of his previous wives. As a bond grows between Bluebeard and the spirited younger sister Marie-Catherine (teenage actress Lola Créton), and the two marry, Breillat avoids portraying Bluebeard as a monster, instead presenting a melancholic, solitary figure to whom Marie-Catherine might plausibly gravitate. Suddenly finding herself a lady, bedecked in finery, Marie-Catherine wanders throughout the castle, but is instructed by her husband never to enter a mysterious locked room though inevitably, curiousity gets the better of her. Despite its move away from sexual explicitness, this is unmistakably a Breillat film. Bluebeard is sumptuously
shot and jarringly sensual: we see the beads of sweat on the Lord’s doom-laden brow, feel the weight of Marie-Catherine’s hefty gowns on her thin frame, and watch as a beheaded chicken runs around before its death, blood gushing from its stump. Breillat’s trademark use of colour – often extremely beautiful and rarely mentioned – is stunning here: the hyper-real contrast between blood red and bone-white appears regularly in her films. The unsettling chemistry between Lola Créton and the much older. Dominique Thomas (Lord Bluebeard) continues Breillat’s run of casting young, unknown actresses in challenging, physically demanding roles, with Créton’s intensity reflecting the devastating performance of twelve year old Anaïs Reboux in A Ma Soeur!. Breillat has previously been criticised for using young actresses as mouthpieces for her own beliefs, but Créton’s performance stands alone as a powerful portrait of a young outsider voluntarily entering
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into a strange, possibly dangerous, relationship with a much older man. Like all of Breillat’s films, Bluebeard is a film about bodies, not about sex. To return to Romance, we have to ask, who sees a film featuring perhaps the most graphic scenes of childbirth in cinematic history as “sex, sex and, well, more sex” anyway? And because there is no sex in this film, viewers might now look beyond the taboos associated with Breillat’s work to appreciate the maturation of a director who has rejected every label thrown at her. Along with her French contemporaries Claire Denis, Gaspar Noé and Bruno Dumont, she consistently interrogates human physicality and sensuality, and just how much a viewer can be made to “feel” a film, rather than simply watch it.
Grosvenor, Fri 19 Feb at 18.00
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Reviews GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES
Director: Howard Hawks Starring: Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell
THIS MONTH sees the cinematic re-release of the 1953 hit Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, telling the story of Lorelei (Marilyn Monroe) and Dorothy (Jane Russell), a pair of Disney-beautiful lounge singers journeying to France. Monroe is at her most iconic as the ditzy and materialistic blonde, while Russell shines as her rational and feisty best friend. Ironically, Lorelei’s shallow exterior betrays a deep-seated longing for security brilliantly exemplified when explaining her need for Dorothy to just ‘find happiness and stop having fun’. Simultaneously, Dorothy’s canny
level-headedness harbours a desire for true love which cements the two opposites symbiotically as they encounter fluffy romantic mischief along the way. With dazzling visuals and spine-tingling musical classics, like Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend, the feel-good factor is heightened by the unwavering sisterhood of the two leads. Their wry renderings on how life works make this a charismatic and amusing Hollywood treat that stands the test of time.[Juliet Buchan] GFT, Sat 20 Feb, 16.00
HIDDEN DIARY
Director: Julie Lopes-Curval Starring: Catherine Deneuve, Marina Hands
IN HIDDEN Diary, Audrey returns to her parents’ home on the French coast after ten years abroad, keeping her pregnancy secret from her distant mother, Martine. On discovering the diary of her grandmother, who abandoned Martine as a child, she begins to build a portrait of a frustrated 1950s housewife whose sadness was never understood by her family, but with whose desire for freedom Audrey can identify. Julie Lopes-Curval’s film stars two of France’s finest actresses – Marina Hands’ sheer sensuality in Pascale Ferran’s Lady Chatterley (2006) was unforgettable, while Catherine
CUCKOO
Director: Richard Bracewell Starring: Laura Fraser, Richard E Grant, Antonia Bernath, Adam Fenton
Deneuve… well, she’s Deneuve, isn’t she? Yet Hidden Diary is a rather soapy melodrama, and doesn’t really stretch either of the actors. Despite its slightness, the film does deal poignantly with women’s experience of guilt and isolation, now and in the past, and when the twist in the tale arrives, it’s subtly realised and allows more room for an intimate chemistry between the two leads to grow.[Jenny Munro]
Cineworld, Fri 19 Feb, 16.00 Cineworld, Sat 20 Feb, 21.00
WITH ITS Hitchcockian leanings and oppressive cinematography, Cuckoo is as tangible a representation of a troubled mind as you are likely to encounter on film. Polly (Laura Fraser) is a cardiological researcher working to further her career alongside her intrusive mentor Julius Greengrass (a subtly creepy Richard E Grant). With her sister Jimi (Antonia Bernath) living in her pocket and a failing relationship with her boyfriend Chapman (Adam Fenton), Polly starts to encounter strange sensory phenomena that challenge her perceptions of the reality around her. Strongly communicating Polly’s anxious and
stressed state, the art direction with its shut-out light and abstract visuals, works well alongside the frenetic, heart-pounding score. Fraser is exceptional at expressing the mental remoteness that the mysterious events of her history have provoked. Although at times things are not particularly clear for the audience, the unsettling ambiguity of the protagonist’s past culminates in a way that inspires the viewer to question their own perceptions in a confusingly befitting finale. [Juliet Buchan]
GFT, Fri 19 Feb, 23.00
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FRIDAY FEBRUARY THE THECINESKINNY CINESKINNY 3 MONDAY 2019 FEBRUARY
Comprehensive film and event listings for each day of the festival HIDDEN DIARY @ CINEWORLD (RENFREW STREET) 04:00PM Until 05:45PM LEAVING @ GLASGOW FILM THEATRE 06:15PM Until 07:45PM
FRI 19 FEB BRINGING UP BABY @ GLASGOW FILM THEATRE 11:00AM Until 01:00PM THE BOYS: THE SHERMAN BROTHERS’ STORY @ GLASGOW FILM THEATRE 03:45PM Until 05:30PM
WHISKY AND VODKA @ CINEWORLD (RENFREW STREET) 06:30PM Until 08:30PM
ECCENTRICITIES OF A BLONDE-HAIRED GIRL @ CINEWORLD (RENFREW STREET) 07:15PM Until 08:30PM EVERYBODY’S FINE @ GLASGOW FILM THEATRE 09:15PM Until 10:30PM HEARTLESS @ GLASGOW FILM THEATRE 08:30PM Until 10:30PM
SONGS FOR AN AIRLESS ROOM @ GLASGOW FILM THEATRE 06:45PM Until 08:15PM
SHE, A CHINESE @ CINEWORLD (RENFREW STREET) 08:45PM Until 10:30PM
BIG FAN @ CINEWORLD (RENFREW STREET) 07:00PM Until 08:30PM
THE APE @ CINEWORLD (RENFREW STREET) 09:00PM Until 10:30PM
THE CRAZIES @ CINEWORLD (RENFREW STREET) 09:15PM Until 11:00PM LUCKYME PARTY @ CCA 10:00PM Until LATE AKIRA @ GLASGOW FILM THEATRE 22:45PM Until 01:00AM THE INVISIBLE FRAME @ CCA 07:30PM Until 09:00PM CUCKOO @ GLASGOW FILM THEATRE 11:00PM Until 12:30AM Full listings available at www.theskinny.co.uk
WHAT’S NEW ONLINE?
To celebrate the addition of Rookies to the GFF programme, we have two tickets to give away to one lucky person. Included as part of the Departures: New Japanese Cinema strand, Rookies (Cineworld, Sat 20 Feb, 14.00) is a feel-good Japanese blockbuster following a disgraced teacher (Ryuta Sato) and a disgraceful school baseball team. To win tickets all you need to do is answer this simple question:
How many films did baseball legend Babe Ruth appear in as an actor? Email your details with the answer as subject line to: gail@theskinny.co.uk by 10am Saturday.
Volunteers roll out the red carpet for the opening gala.
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BLOGS For a chance to delve behind the scenes of the festival, head to www.glasgowfilmfestival.org.uk/blog, where you’ll find extra interviews, updates, news and even hand-picked selections of films, chosen by conveners of GFF and special guest contributors. Online now is GFF Co-Director Allan Hunter’s comments on Kirk Jones’ Everybody’s Fine and Glasgow-based film distributors Park Circus’ pick of the GFF events.
PIC OF THE DAY
COMPETITION
TWITTER For those who don’t tweet – here is the hottest, most current GFF gossip. @GlasgowTramway: Getting excited about Glasgow Film Fest @glasgowfilm remember we’ve got three nights of film screenings @glasgow Tramway @glasgowfilmfest: Don’t miss Ray Tintori of Court 13’s masterclass on Sat. Possibly THE highlight of GSFF. @seeglasgow: Is it Glasgow or New York?! Idris Elba stars in Legacy: Glasgow Film Festival hosts world premiere
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