Films 2012: A Foreign Affair

Oh wait, I was writing about films here, wasn't I? Well here's a round up of the rest, starting with our cousins from across the sea. Only not cousins but some foreign people. Speaking foreign. WHY DON'T THEY JUST SPEAK MY LANGUAGE AND BE EASIER? Also: films.

Monsieur Lazhar

A film that that stuck with me for ages after seeing it thanks to some fantastically powerful images and some terrific performances, particularly the title character played by Mohamed Saïd Fellag, an unqualified Algerian immigrant who is taken on as a school's new teacher after an unspeakable tragedy. Everything is played very calmly and quiet whilst in the distance a simmering anger and sadness is always close to rising up and engulfing. Sad but beautiful.



Turn Me On, Dammit! (Få meg på, for faen)

Utter filth from start to finish but painfully accurate on the trials and miseries of being a randy 15 year old endlessly fiddling with yourself and managing fickle friends. The Norwegian setting never dilutes the central message or performances from being utterly recognisable to a Worldwide audience and the central figure being a unsated girl is more eye-opening than the more obvious path of a spotty, nerdish boy.

Fake Edit: Ooh you can watch the full thing online here



This Is Not A Film

An Iranian documentary about controversial film-maker Jafar Panahi who is under house-arrest awaiting the results of a six year prison sentence and 20 year ban from making movies. To overcome his frustration and desire to tell stories he invites a friend with a camcorder around to his home and acts out in bursts the screenplay he hoped to film. In and amongst are raw snippets of Panahi's everyday life and thoughts which are sometimes banal, sometimes enlightening but always showing a rare insight into modern day Iran.



The Kid With A Bike (Le Gamin au vélo)

A simple but effecting film about a foster care kid who has total conviction in his wastrel father and the hairdresser who ends up becoming his carer after a chance meeting in a doctor's surgery. It does sound like much of a laugh riot and indeed it really isn't but it is a tender and rather gorgeous little film about lonely people finding each other which should blow-torch even the hardest of hearts. Its basically a French Tracy Beaker. But with less custard fights.



Holy Motors

The sort of film that I really don't want to explain so the utter bonkersness of the mostly non-existent plot can truly land. More a series of vignettes of different characters in different social strata but all played out in one day and by the same actor Denis Levant. Weird but fascinatingly so and made even more so when Kylie Minogue suddenly shows up two thirds into it. But I'm saying too much. Give it a try. I promise you'll enjoy yourself at the very least.


Sleepless Night (Nuit Blanche)

The sort of film that will be remade by America any day now and much worse for it I'll wager. That said you could switch out the central actor for Bruce Willis and it would probably slot into the Die Hard canon fairly well with a central crooked cop whose son is kidnapped when the real crims learn about him nicking a load of delicious cocaine from them in a heist. Pretty much all taking place in a nightclub or its environs, there's a lot of running about, switching bags, panicked plotting and the kicking of bad guy bottoms.



Headhunters

Another that will probably get the remake treatment, this time a Jo Nesbo adaptation about a corporate headhunter and part time art thief who upsets the wrong people and pulls the rip cord marked "twisty turny adventure thriller yes please thanks". Intricately plotted, this is like a Jonathan Creek episode not fronted by a quite unpleasant curly headed man.



Next time: the rest. Don't worry that's really it then.... OR IS IT A TRICK? Um...no.