bloovee Reviews

Death of a Ladies' Man (2020)

Leonard Cohen inspiration - but it's not like Mamma Mia

[8/10 · 20 July 2022]

Death of a Ladies' Man (dir. Matt Bissonnette, cert 15) isn't getting a theatrical release in the UK, only streaming. It takes its inspiration from Leonard Cohen songs.

Sam (Patrick Byrne) is a Literature professor in Quebec, his second marriage breaking up, his son Layton (Antoine Olivier Pilon) coming out as gay, and he's hallucinating about his dead father (Brian Gleeson) - "a terrible ghost". When the hallucinations affect the day job, the doctor initially discounts a brain tumour - his years of hard drinking would explain a lot - but a scan reveals an inoperable tumour that could affect memory, hearing, vision and motion ("That's a relief; I hardly ever use any of that stuff").

His daughter Josée (Karelle Tremblay), 18, a performance artist, has new boyfriend Chad (Raphael Grosz-Harvey) leading her into bad ways with drugs. That will end badly.

The second act has him "reflecting on my life and imminent death" by visiting his childhood home in Galway, still envisioning and conversing with his dead father. The encounter at the local grocery store with Charlotte (Jessica Paré), a French-Canadian woman reading Leonard Cohen's poetry, prompts a "small world" moment, leading quickly into too, too solid flesh moments (the script references Shakespeare as well as Cohen). The shot of a Cohen lookalike as a Buddhist monk miming to Why Don't You Try is definitely "trippy", and the appearance of Charlotte's former boyfriend adds a violent twist to the story.

Act 3 has Sam back in Canada at Alcoholics Anonymous, and dealing with Josée's drug addiction.

The licence that hallucinations can give to a script has the AA group dancing to Did I Ever Love You? (a late Cohen mash of his ever-raspier voice suddenly transformed into country music). Then comes a Lazarus gag, and Death (with scythe) accompanying Sam on a walk with an old friend, discussing Sam's new book recounting his experiences.

The book launch - with his dead dad and others from his hallucinations in the audience - is a triumph, but rudely interrupted by a claim of plagiarism, and a rather more abrupt encounter with death than foreseen. When the number of new films is still quite low, for this not to get a theatrical release even on the arthouse circuit seems strange.

L'abbuffata (2007)

Good film about film, with a macabre twist

[8/10 · 1 January 2021]

Young filmmakers in a small town in southern Italy seek guidance from a celebrated director, retired and living in their area. Part of his advice for their intended film is to recruit a well-known actor. On a trip to Rome they make a connection that gives an introduction to Gérard Depardieu to be their star, but what would persuade him to fly to Calabria to make a film with amateur would-be directors, and can he survive the experience? Local people fill roles in the film within the film, and in the film itself.

The film's director Mimmo Calopresti called it "a film about cinema in all its forms, about the desire to make cinema despite everything". It's not as enthralling, nor as sentimental, as Cinema Paradiso, but it's rather good fun, not least when the film needs a hasty rewrite. It deserved a wider audience but is little known outside Italy (and not much in Italy).

Morris: A Life with Bells On (2009)

UK film distributors - shame on you!

[10/10 · 15 December 2009]

Morris – A Life with Bells On was sheer delight. In a packed screen at Picturehouse in Liverpool (one of only three scheduled showings in the north-west) I had to sit on the front row, and the lack of a wider release is a scandal.

From the moment Derecq Twist (Charles Thomas Oldham, who wrote the story) is seen dancing (supposedly) near the head of the Cerne Abbas Giant and the camera pulls out to show the figure holding a hand across his crotch this was full of great humour both in the words and the visuals. Even the invention of a "Dorchester Airport" got a laugh.

It's done as a sort of Spinal Tap mockumentary. Aidan McArdle plays the producer Jeremy, who breaks the golden rule of documentary – "I intervened". That's after Derecq is plunged into despair following his rustication from the Morris Circle. From its offices in the City of London, Chief Executive Quentin Neely (Derek Jacobi) defends the Englishness of Morris Dancing against such foreign influences as the Brazilian "morrizio".

Manchester's Moss Side Morris are the reluctant enforcers of the Circle's dictates. Ian Hart as their "squire", Endeavour Hungerfjord Welsh, takes his duties seriously. Academic credibility on the history of Morris comes from Harriet Walter as Compton Chamberlayne, Emeritus Professor of International Folk Dance at Cambridge. You're never quite sure whether it's true history or absolute cobblers.

The outrageously camp Orange County Morris in California give Derecq a refuge, and romantic interest from Sonja (Naomie Harris). Derecq follows her to her new job in Iowa where he's reduced to the devil's dance (line dancing, you can learn all the moves in ten minutes). The lure of the Morris (and the prospect of a pint of Onan's Revenge cider) takes him back to Dorset and redemption.

There's just so much good stuff in this: a superb evocation of grief as well as the laughs, and a marvellous turn by Dominique Pinon as a French fisherman washed up on the Dorset shore after a storm, who decided to stay rather than go back to a million empty whelk shells.

Home (II) (2008)

A modern parable

[7/10 · 13 August 2009]

The World Health Organisation reckons regular night-time noise of more than 45dB can ruin your health. Here's a film that treats a fact of modern life and turns into a "home under attack" movie. It's coming, and you can't stop it.... It's quite clever to have a home-invasion movie where the alien force is nothing more scary than noise and loss of privacy.

Swiss writer-director Ursula Meier backs this tale of modern times with jazz tracks, classical work, and Nina Simone. The music is a diversion from the relentless pressure building on the family as they face up to life next to a Trans-European highway.

Cinematographer Agnès Godard captures the images brilliantly, from the pose Michel strikes on his car roof with the chest freezer that now has to be delivered across the new road, to the line of holiday traffic stretching into the distance in one long bidirectional jam.

Morir en San Hilario (2005)

A town that comes to life when someone dies

[8/10 · 1 August 2006]

San Hilario is a village that's made a killing by putting on great funerals, but business is slack. It's been ten years since they had a customer. They're a bit rusty.

When they do get a client, he dies before he can get there - but an escaping bank robber is mistaken for the man expected. At first he's happy to be in this village cut off from the world and the police searching for him, and it's two days before he finds out that his welcome, the visit to the church, meeting the priest, and getting measured up by the tailor are preliminaries to his own funeral.

It's sad and funny - there's a framed map of San Hilario, as a dot in the middle of nowhere that says "you are here". "A fictional story with touches of magical realism" is writer-director Laura Mañá's own take on her film, which touches on life, death, love, truth, faith, doubt and hope.