MANGROVE, Steve McQueen’s furious opening salvo in his SMALL AXE film anthology is powerful, poignant and essential Black British storytelling. The film remembers the Mangrove Nine and their very public 55 day trial for supposedly inciting a riot by protesting the Notting Hill Mangrove Caribbean restaurant’s repeated targeting for police raids. The film manages the not inconsiderable task of being celebratory of Black British communities and culture and being unflinching in depicting their bridal treatment at the hands of the Metropolitan Police. Malachi Kirby is a force of nature as Darcus Howe defending himself in court and Shaun Parkes makes a dignified Frank Crichlow but the entire cast and the vast socio-political canvas McQueen has put together here and in the other Small Axe films is simply awe-inspiring. This is deeply personal and important filmmaking, disturbing as it is how relevant this story still feels today. SSP
Review in Brief: Mangrove (2020)
Review in Brief: The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020)
Aaron Sorkin’s greatest strengths as a writer and a filmmaker are also his greatest weaknesses, but he’s probably the kind of idealistic voice the world needs right now. This is never truer than in watching THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7, which is verbose and passionate and well-performed while also being idealistic and romanticised almost to the point of parody. It’s a fascinating and important period of American history to cover, but for some reason Sorkin felt it necessary to leave some of the more unbelievable (but true) events of the trial of Vietnam War protestors accused of inciting a riot in Chicago and invent his own less interesting (untrue) embellishments. It’s all very nice looking and sounding and the performances, particularly from Mark Rylance and Yahya Abdul-Mateen impress, but this does nothing particularly revolutionary or challenging and you’re left thinking, “good, but not great”. SSP
Mank (2020) Review
Peninsula (2020) Review
Review in Brief: Possessor (2020)
We’re all just meat puppets really, that’s the message here. POSSESSOR is as stylish and extreme and disturbing as expected from Brandon Cronenberg, son of David, but it’s very much its own thing as well. Andrea Riseborough and Christopher Abbott are firmly cemented as two of the most talented young character actors working today, playing as they do a body-hijacking assassin and her latest tool for the job who proves more independent and wilful than expected. This is layered, emotional and an unexpectedly tragic character piece that will doubtless reward repeat viewings. The most complex of philosophical ideas are communicated in striking visual form in a fascinatingly contradictory film that manages to be both beautiful and deformed, unpleasant and entertaining, cynical and spiritual. SSP
Review in Brief: Scare Me (2020)
SCARE ME is an absolute joy, full of mischief and creativity and completely different to every other horror anthology film out there. A simple enough premise – an aspiring horror writer waits out a power cut in an isolated cabin with a successful published author and both proceed to tell and perform scary stories to outdo each other. The sound design accompanying the stories is genre mainstream quality but everything else is left to your imagination and the game performances of Josh Ruben and Aya Cash who pantomime the events and characters of their stories for our amusement. It’s funny, intriguing and sweet until it definitely isn’t anymore. Likely won’t satisfy every horror hound, but for anyone looking for something a little different, it’s well worth catching on Shudder. SSP
Review in Brief: Eternal Beauty (2019/20)
I always love films that look unflinchingly at mental illness but are also brave enough not to perpetuate the fallacy that someone with a mental health problems automatically becomes a saint. In Craig Roberts’ second complex directorial feature, Jane (a superb Sally Hawkins) is a challenging personality to put it mildly. If getting jilted at the alter wasn’t enough, Jane is unlucky enough to have a cold mother (Penelope Wilton), a useless father (Robert Pugh) and sisters patronising and uncaring (Alice Lowe and Billie Piper respectively). We follow Jane through her latest spiral, hooking up with another troubled soul (David Thewlis) and becoming more erratic than ever as she decides to take herself off her prescription medication in order to feel more. It’s not an easy watch, but it’s worth it for the truthful, painful performances, a surprising amount of awkward laughs to be had among all the affecting melancholy. SSP
Review in Brief: Monsoon (2019/20)
Hong Khaou’s follow-up to LILTING, another tale of love, identity and displacement, is quietly mesmerising. The cinematography of MONSOON is particularly striking, from the opening aerial shot of scuttling columns of Saigon traffic to how the camera frequently seems to momentarily lose Kit (Henry Golding) as he wanders off screen to ascend a flight of stairs, drifting slowly up buildings to reconnect with him higher up as he walks back into frame. This is a film of connection and remembrance but not an overly sentimental one, the rough edges to the story of returning to a country previously fled in terror as an adult are made prominent and the characters are refreshingly imperfect. Golding shows his range and is ably backed up by Parker Sawyers and David Tran whose characters get full and fledged-out arcs just as Kit does. SSP
Review in Brief: Relic (2020)
RELIC is an oppressively creepy, deeply moving horror from already-distinct Australian filmmaking voice Natalie Erika James. Kay (Emily Mortimer) along with her daughter Sam (Bella Heathcote) goes looking for her missing dementia-suffering mother (Robyn Nevin) but when she reappears apparently fine and lucid things start to take a turn for the strange. The unsettled characters, the mouldering, shifting environment and the sinister unknowability of external tormentors makes for the perfect dementia parable. The imagery of the film’s creepy and surreal final stretch involving invasive mould, endless cluttered corridors and peeling flesh will stay with you for a long time, whatever the hell it really means. That’s the message here: don’t expect answers but do expect to be hypnotised, haunted and affected in profound and unexpected ways. SSP
Review in Brief: Impetigore (2019/20)
Even in a year chock-full of examples of distinctively-voiced horror, the Indonesian offering IMPETIGORE stands out. It’s self-aware without being glib (someone asks “who kills students?” the answer every horror fan knows, is any antagonist in a horror film), it’s extreme without being nasty and it uses aspects of uniquely Indonesian culture to add depth without resorting to outright stereotype. It’s pretty hard to neatly categorise in a horror sub-genre, incorporating elements of slasher, folk, occult and supernatural horror but never settling in one for long. Prepare to be constantly wrong-footed, frequently shocked and consistently entertained by this unique beast. Tara Basaro and director Joko Anwar are a killer combination and while they may be genre veterans in their home country, Impetigore could very well get them some much-deserved attention in the West. SSP
SSP Thinks Film 