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I’M STILL HERE, BIRD and other 2025 cinematic delights

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Which films have you seen at the cinema this year? What should we be looking out for and what should we be avoiding?
Do you have a favourite local cinema?

It’s been an excellent start to the year at Bio Reflexen here in Kärrtorp. For example, on Sunday evening we screened Andrea Arnold’s wonderfully quirky BIRD. And then on Tuesday, 120 people came to see Walter Salles’ I’M STILL HERE, which quite rightly won the BEST FOREIGN FILM OSCAR.

Now, a heartening local news story. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m on the board of Reflexen. It’s a great pleasure to be involved in a non-profit, local cinema which is so dearly loved by the locals but we’ve just had a few turbulent weeks.

We depend on a grant from the local authority to be able to pay the rent on the building. A fortnight ago, the local politicians decided to reduce our grant by 40,000 SEK so that they could give more money to other local clubs and associations. That’s four thousand quid in real money. We were shocked, as were our audience.

BUT…..since the news broke over 200 of them have paid 200 SEK to become FRIENDS of the cinema and have saved our bacon. It’s wonderful to have that kind of support from the local community.

I’M STILL HERE is a lovingly made portrayal of a very dark period in Brazil’s history with a stellar performance by Fernanda Torres as Eunice Paiva. It’s the true story of a brave woman who, after her husband’s arrest by the military, struggled to confront the military dictatorship and keep her family together.

Director, Walter Salles, is a veteran. You may know him from CENTRAL STATION and THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES. This film was. rather unusually, shot in the same sequence as the events which it described which had a powerful effect on the actors.

It is based on the book by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, the son in the family, who was a young child when his dad was abducted and later became a successful writer.

It seems Bolsonaro hates him and all his family. That makes me like him even more.

The movie is beautifully photographed and is in many ways a love letter to the city of Rio de Janeiro. So, if you have been there, you will enjoy the film even more.

The soundtrack of the film is on Spotify and to my delight it is a doozy.

Several old favourites like Tim Maia, Roberto Carlos, Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, Tom Ze and Os Mutantes and new faves Erasmo Carlos, Juca Chaves and Nelson Sargento, The biggest surprise was Je t’aime…. moi non plus. Yikes. Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin were everywhere in the 70s.

In the film, the oldest daughter in the family travels to London to study and the family delight in her letters home. Not least when she mentions going at a party and meeting Gilberto Gil and then hearing him play a Bob Marley song. Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso lived in rather unhappy exile in London during the dictatorship and even played at the Isle of Wight festival in 1970.

When my pal Jeanie and I visited Rio in January 1984 we were really lucky and managed to get tickets to see Gil at a nightclub on Copacabana. The atmosphere was quite extraordinary. To say that the audience went bonkers doesn’t do it justice.

I found several excellent interviews with Fernanda Torres. She is very witty and articulate. See comments

It was very moving to hear Fernanda describe how, when the military seized power, Brazil was on a roll in terms of music, cinema and culture. And then suddenly it was a country closed off in many ways from the rest of the world for many years.

The film is the story of one family’s quest for justice. But it’s also the tragic story of a country and its long, painful journey back to democracy after a vicious dictatorship.

And in the light of current world events, it could not be more topical. I warmly recommend it.

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Comments

  2. We went to the cinema on Monday to see Time Travel is Dangerous, which was OK, but the reason we went was because it was filmed in Muswell Hill and we really went to spot locations. At one point we both said simultaneously “Ally Pally”. Maybe not the best reason to see a film but we enjoyed it.

    I like the Thursday morning trip to the cinema in Elland unfortunately of late it’s not shown anything I want to see. The Art House in Crouch End is one I like to visit when I’m down in Muswell Hill.

    • That looks like a good nostalgia fest for an ex-Muswell Hillite – not available in Oz yet, unsurprisingly.

      We’re going to see this at the weekend, about Oz’s Woodstock. Very northern NSW – Nimbin is just down the road. It’s rather a sad place these days, but they’re still fighting the good fight. The Nimbin Good Times, the local paper, is an absolute model of what a local newspaper ought to be but isn’t any more.

  4. Very much looking forward to seeing this film @kaisfatdad. Hopefully this weekend. Thanks for the prod.

    My vote would be for the joint winner of this year’s best film Goya in Spain, El 47. A very decent film in the Ken Loach vein. It might not travel well hence no english subtitled trailer.

    The soundtrack is pretty good too. The highlight being this lovely song.

    • I’ve watched a few Spanish films that I’ve liked recently. Quite a run, in fact. It started with La Hoya 2 (The Platform 2, not as good as the first), then As bestas (The Beasts), Nuevo orden (New Order*), El practicante (The Paramedic), Los renglones torcidos de Dios (God’s Crooked Lines) and La mesita del comedor (the Coffee Table). I enjoyed them all. Still shocked by that last one. What’s the biggest “shit, I fucked up” fuck up you can imagine? Nothing compared to the one in The Coffee Table, I’ll wager.

      *No, nothing to do with them.

      • Thanks for those recommendations @Gary. Really liked As bestas (if liked is the correct word) so I’ll add the others to the watch list. Alcarras is another fairly recent Spanish film I’d highly recommend. .

      • When I saw that you’d seen a Spanish film called The Platform, @gary, I suspected that this was going to turn into a thread about public transport in the Iberian Penínsular . Your platform turned out to be something very dystopian and very different.

        Was there any particular reason that you were watching so many Spanish films?

        I’m gobsmacked that a film about a coffee table could be as terrifying as the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Ring or The Evil Dead.

        What would IKEA have to say about that?

        I read a few comments on IMDB and you are not the only one who was left speechless. Please do not tell us any more. Braver souls can go and watch it.

        • @kaisfatdad
          “Was there any particular reason that you were watching so many Spanish films?”

          One of the many advantages of being deaf is that it makes absolutely no difference to me what language the film is in, which has lead me to watching more and more non-English films. Not that I’ve ever shied away from watching subtitled films, but the “no difference” factor seems to have ignited a newfound enthusiasm for them!
          I’d watched The Platform a couple of years ago and thought it was very good and spurred me to investigate other recent Spanish films and I’ve decided they’re currently very good at this cinema malarky. Not 5 star masterpiece good, but 3 or 4 star good. Well worth watching and an engrossing evening’s “entertainment”, all of them.
          I look forward to watching @guiri ‘s two recommendations.

          Ps. I wouldn’t call The Coffee Table “terrifying” in any traditional, horror movie sense. I’d call it “very, very, very intense and disturbing”. Three “verys”, no less!

  5. Payal Kapadia’s “All we Imagine as Light” has only just opened in Stockholm (I know it opened ages ago in the UK).
    I’m looking forward to seeing it.

  7. I have seen 2 films this year on the big screen. A Complete Unknown at my nearest suburban multiplex. And Citizen Kane at downtown “arts cinema”, Bytowne cinema. That was free , I have a membership which allows you one free movie in the month of your birthday (and discounts on other occasions). It’s a pretty nice cinema, except massive lines for popcorn if you like that sort of thing (they also have craft beer), it’s also in a pretty sketchy part of town.

  8. My favourite film of the year so far was the Australian animation, Memoirs Of A Snail. It’s not for kids and it isn’t really about snails. It’s about the stories of two twins who get separated when young, keep in touch and the ups and downs of their lives. Very life affirming and with a very amusing brief Nick Cave voice cameo.

        • Life of Pi vibes? You had me baffled for a moment there @Kjwilly.

          And then I re-read your comment. A mix up between two monosyllabic animated films whose names begin with F.

          This year’s Oscar winner from Latvia – FLOW

          https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4772188/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1_tt_7_nm_0_in_0_q_flow

          And Danish social realism drama about refugees FLEE

          https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8430054/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_5_nm_3_in_0_q_flee

          I’ve not seen FLOW but it’s been a big hit at REFLEXEN and I really want to see it. I was very surprised when my friend @DuCo01 went to see it. Unlike me he’s not a serious animation fan

          I’ve seen FLEE twice and warmly recommend it. Sometimes animation provides the chance to tell a story far more effectively than live action.

          From that IMDB list, I’d also like to particularly recommend, to those who want social realism ….

          THE BREADWINNER, ANOTHER DAY OF LIFE, PERSEPOLIS, WALTZ WITH BASHIR, MY LIFE AS A COURGETTE and GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES

          Not that I don’t really enjoy the other films from GHIBLI and AARDMAN.

          Anyway, I’m now going to go radically off-piste and mention a NETFLIX show that my 22 year old son has recommended, namely DANDADAN.

          To mÿ surprise I really enjoy it.

          Can you imagine a Japanese mash up between Grease and the Blair Witch Project with a large dollop of Ghostbusters and the X Files?

          Of course you can.

          Trusr me. You are really going to like and care for Momo and Okarun

  9. Per the February Blogger Takeover :

    “I’ve nothing against going to the cinema; it’s just not in my habit. I was staggered to find that I hadn’t been for 15 years, which is daft as we have a lovely comfy studio cinema a ten minute cycle from my house. So, what better way to dip in my toe after such a gap than the three and a half hours of The Brutalist? Do not be daunted; just luxuriate. It may be a long haul but the plot and the dialogue are not so dense, which allows enjoyment of the excellent sound and sound track. I have more than a passing interest in architecture, so the imagery worked for me. That said, I do know that those with a professional interest have baulked at it, finding fault with chronology and detail. While it is fiction, apparently it is all too clear which emigre Hungarian Jewish architect inspired the plot, which causes consternation when the plot and characters swerve wildly from the inspiration. I suspect it is a little like A Complete Unknown, in that the knowledgeable will get annoyed by inaccuracy, whereas my superficial interest leaves me free to enjoy.”

    • 15 years away from the cinema, @thecheshirecat. if I don’t see a film for 15 days ,I get withdrawal symptoms.

      Completely agree with you about the best level of knowledge when seeing a biography.

      i enjoyed A Complete Unknown a lot more because I didn’t know too many of the details of Bob’s early days. I can well imagine that hard-core Bobophiles must have got into a terrible tizzy about the small details that they got wrong.

      i wasn’t sure if I wanted to see it at all. But then one of my Reflexen colleagues, who was born in 1977 and is a real movie nerd but not so interested in music, told me it was an excellent, enjoyable movie. Her verdict changed my mind and I’m very glad it did.

  10. Olympic Studios in Barnes is my local cinema. It’s a very good one – great picture quality, comfy seats, exemplary sound. The clientele can tend to be somewhat pleased with themselves and oblivious to the existence of others but I can usually zone them out. I’ve been there a fair bit recently. These are the films I can remember seeing this year.

    A Complete Unknown was ok for me. Neither good nor bad. But Mrs Walsh loved it which, given that she loathes His Bobness and all his works, made the film pretty impressive.

    Becoming Led Zeppelin was good but only because I like the music and it was played loud and very well amplified.

    I didn’t enjoy A Real Pain. It’s supposed to be funny, thought-provoking, moving and all kinds of other important things. I just found it a tiresome exercise in ticking right-on boxes that challenges the audience to say they loved it and found it hilarious and moving in order to demonsrate how sensitive and deep they are. Call me shallow but I hated it.

    I hated Black Bag too. Leaving aside the difficulty I had with saying the title without adding “The Faithful Border Bin Liner” I found the whole thing so implausible that I would have left part way through if I had been there on my own. I have a low tolerance of implausibility in what are presented as “serious” films, plays or tv shows which unfortunately means I rarely enjoy them. Everyone I know seems to have loved Conclave (and I could see it was well filmed and well acted but the plot seemed so silly to me that I couldn’t wait for it to end). Did I miss the memo that said that the standard of plausibility we should expect in all drama is that of your average superhero movie? Black Bag though was a pretty extreme case. I found almost every scene ludicrous.

    Maybe the BBFC should have a second rating system for movies to go alongside the current one. It could maybe go something like this.
    U – no pretences to plausibility whatsoever, leave your critical faculties at home and enjoy the fun
    A – some attempts have been made to create a veneer of “truth” but wherever this might have deprived the film of the opportunity to have a spectacular set-piece or to ram home some clangingly obvious point that the director is desperate to make then we’ve taken the soft option
    AA – largely plausible but with the odd moment that will seem unlikely in hindsight – with luck, you’ll find the rest of it so entertaining that you won’t mind
    X – properly thought through, should withstand scrutiny from someone who is actually paying attention and thinking about what’s going on (this includes films that have their own internal logic that may not work in the real world but which is made tolerably clear to the audience and has been properly thought through and carefully applied)

    This puts it better

  11. Thanks for such a detailed answer to my questions @steve-walsh,

    Olympic Studios sounds like a quite remarkable place. Not least because it has housed a recording studio as well as the cinema.

    And the programming is idiosyncratic too. There seems to be a special emphasis on films about music. And then they have recent releases to suit all tastes, plus older films revisited often combined with directors’ visits or on-line link ups to events happening elsewhere.

    https://www.olympiccinema.com/whats-on

    The story behind the cinema is worth reading. It began as a cinema, became a theatre, then a cinema again and then in 1966 became a very successful recording studios. Olympic Studios. And the became a cinema again.

    https://www.olympicstudios.com/pages/our-story

    I’m glad to hear that Mrs W enjoyed the Bob biopic. James Mangold achieved something special there in creating a film that both the general pubic and music nerds would enjoy. As you may know, he also directed the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the line, so he’s got form.

    I was very amused by your comments about A Real Pain as I’m one of those people who felt sensitive and deep when they watched it. I liked it a lot. A film that impressed due to an excellent script, fine acting and superb photography.

    I’d seen Emilia Perez the previous week and been a tad under-awed after having had very great expectations. A Real Pain was a very conventional film by contrast but that resulted in a far stronger involvement with the characters for me,

    I did chuckle over your new classification system, Steve.

    You are really onto something there. How does the director of a film or a TV show get us to put our critical faculties on hold and accept the logic of the story they are telling?

    For example, we’ve just been watching a Nordic Noir TV show where there were scenes which were simply unbelievable and that spoilt it all for us.

    • Interesting to read the comments about A Complete Unknown. As a Dylan nut I wasn’t bothered by innacuracies and inventions but in the end I just got a bit fed up of basically watching a bloke doing a (very good) impression of Dylan singing and playing. A well made film but conventional and one in which I felt there was just *too much* music. And it’s too long. I’m surprised it’s been as popular as it has. When he went electric at the end I was as relieved to leave the acoustic guitar behind as he clearly was at the time.

      Funnily enough my daughter who has no interest in Dylan liked it more than me but decided he was a bit of a bastard and she preferred Joan Baez. The woman in front of us reviewed it succinctly at the end: ‘Fuck, I thought that would never end…’

  12. Olympic Studios does have an interesting story and they make a lot of the music heritage of the building. There’s a record shop opposite that specialises in recordings made there. Before every film they show a promo for the cinema that begins with clips of the Stones recording Sympathy for the Devil at Olympic and highlights just how many classic albums were made there. It’s very good but after 12 years of seeing it before every film I’ve watched in Barnes I do wish they’d produce a sequel.

    This issue of critical faculties is a difficult one for me because so many things irritate me that I frequently dislike movies etc. that most others like and for reasons that don’t trouble anyone else. I was obviously in a bad mood yesterday morning. Apologies for spraying my grumpy comments onto your thread @Kaisfatdad.

  13. Last Sunday REFLEXEN screened Andrea Arnold’s new film Bird. She is a very idiosyncratic British director who makes films unlike anyone else. Previously I’ d seen two films.

    AMERICAN HONEY is the story of a teenage girl who runs away from home to join a raggle taggle crew of magazine salespeople travelling the Mid- West. Some great performances and some very memorable moments. But it was far too long,

    And then there was the documentary COW. A very unsentimental portrait of dairy farming and the life of one cow. No commentary. Once again, AA showed a great eye for memorable scenes, such as when the cows are let out into the summer fields,

    In BIRD Nykiya Adams is brilliant as Bailey, a 12 year old girl living with her extremely dysfunctional family in Kent. Social realism it is not. Her single parent dad is hoping to raise money for his wedding by selling the psychedelic secretions of a mysterious toad.

    Just as everything is getting too much for her, she befriends a mysterious chap called Bird who suddenly appears one morning when she is sleeping in a field. He is searching for information about his childhood.

    Once again, Andrea Arnold has filmed on location with a large, mostly non-professional cast and got superb performances from her central characters. There’s a top notch soundtrack and she has a wonderful eye for detail.

    I was expecting that I would like the film and ended up really enjoying it.

    A quirky urban fairy story that does not turn a blind eye to the uglier, more brutal aspects of life.

  14. We are members of The Rex a beautifully restored art deco cinema in Berkhamsted. It’s as much about the experience of going there as it is the film – feels very friendly and comfortable and we allow ourselves a sneaky beer or wine even if it’s an official no alcohol day. We mix up better known films with more obscure stuff but so far this year it’s been the former. Very much enjoyed Conclave and Complete Unknown. Also saw an old one by Ken Loach ‘The Wind That Shakes The Barley’ which was excellent. But by far our favourite over last 6 months or so was Perfect Days – 90 minutes of calming mindfulness which is very much needed at the moment

  17. it’s a tough life being a film-maker in Iran today.

    A few weeks back, REFLEXEN screened the excellent THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG which became Germany’s Oscar nomination. All the filming had to be done in conditions of great secrecy.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAc_KEs8Yho4

    The director was sentenced to 8 years in prison and a flogging. Luckily he managed to escape by travelling on foot over the mountains into Turkey.

  18. I wanted to see the Sacred Fig when I was back in London a few weeks ago, but it was at the fag end of its run and only screening at odd times.

    Went to see Mickey 17 instead. A huge disappointment after Parasite

  19. Yesterday evening our film club at Reflexen screened Agnieszka Holland’s superb GREEN BORDER. Beautifully filmed in black and white, the plot tells the stories of refugees trying to reach Europe via Belarus and Poland.

    Rotten Tomatoes has this excellent description:

    In the treacherous and swampy forests that make up the so-called “green border” between Belarus and Poland, refugees from the Middle East and Africa trying to reach the European Union are trapped in a geopolitical crisis cynically engineered by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko. In an attempt to provoke Europe, refugees are lured to the border by propaganda promising easy passage to the EU.

    Poland’s Agnieszka Holland has a long and distinguished career as a director. I suspect this film is her finest hour. She pulls no punches about the cruel and inhumane way that the refugees are treated by the border control police.

    Warmly recommended.

  20. I will highlight a few not previously mentioned by others, but worth seeing.

    Maria a much more interesting and inventive biopic than A Complete Unknown

    We live in time – a somewhat implausible script, but touching and Florence Pugh is fantastic, as always.

    Sister Midnight – I supect this will be marmite, but we loved it. Mad as a box of frogs.

    Santosh – Visceral and harrowing.

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