Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 287: Sun Oct 20

Anora (Baker, 2024): Prince Charles Cinema, 8pm

68th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (9th - 20th October 2024) DAY 12

With its date at the end of the year, London is a "festival of festivals", as Telegraph film critic Robbie Collin put it in one of his previews, so the films shown have mostly been seen and commented on by critics who have watched the features at such high-profile festivals as Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Sundance and Berlin.

So I'm making it simple with one recommendation a day. I will be concentrating on the repertory choices but I've also read the reviews of the contemporary releases and talked to and listened to the trusted critics all year and I am as confident as I can be that this is the pick of the movies within the parameters I have set. Firstly, there's no point highlighting the major gala films - they will be sold out quickly. Secondly, there is little to be gained in paying the higher Festival ticket prices to see films that are out in Britain soon. I will be returning to the London Festival films worthy of seeing and set to be released in the coming months on this blog as and when they get a general release in London.

Here then (from October 9th to October 20th) are the films you are likely to be able to get tickets for and the movies you are unlikely to see in London very soon unless you go the Festival. Here is the LFF's main website for the general information you need. Don't worry if some of the recommended films are sold out as there are always some tickets on offer which go on sale 30 minutes before each screening. Here is the information you need to get those standby tickets.

This film also screens at the Southbank Centre on October 11th and 15th. You can find all the details here.

BFI introduction:
Sean Baker (Florida Project, Red Rocket) presents a modern-day Cinderella story about Ani, a young sex worker from Brooklyn, meeting Vanya, a spoiled son of a Russian oligarch, who offers her a glamorous new life of possibility and incredible wealth. Ani’s wild ride and fairytale is soon threatened when news of their whirlwind marriage gets back to Russia, resulting in Vanya’s parents flying to New York to manage the situation. Both wildly entertaining and heartbreaking, Anora takes audiences on a freewheeling, rambunctious adventure that escalates to dizzying levels. Drawing comparisons to Pretty Woman, it constantly plays with genre and audience expectations. But what shines through most, as it does in all of his films, is Baker’s love for and unwillingness to judge his characters.
Isabel Moir

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 286: Sat Oct 19

All We Imagine As Light (Kapadia, 2024): Curzon Mayfair, 12pm

68th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (9th - 20th October 2024) DAY 11

With its date at the end of the year, London is a "festival of festivals", as Telegraph film critic Robbie Collin put it in one of his previews, so the films shown have mostly been seen and commented on by critics who have watched the features at such high-profile festivals as Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Sundance and Berlin.

So I'm making it simple with one recommendation a day. I will be concentrating on the repertory choices but I've also read the reviews of the contemporary releases and talked to and listened to the trusted critics all year and I am as confident as I can be that this is the pick of the movies within the parameters I have set. Firstly, there's no point highlighting the major gala films - they will be sold out quickly. Secondly, there is little to be gained in paying the higher Festival ticket prices to see films that are out in Britain soon. I will be returning to the London Festival films worthy of seeing and set to be released in the coming months on this blog as and when they get a general release in London.

Here then (from October 9th to October 20th) are the films you are likely to be able to get tickets for and the movies you are unlikely to see in London very soon unless you go the Festival. Here is the LFF's main website for the general information you need. Don't worry if some of the recommended films are sold out as there are always some tickets on offer which go on sale 30 minutes before each screening. Here is the information you need to get those standby tickets.

This film also screens at the Southbank Centre on October 18th. Details here.

BFI introduction:
Prabha, Anu and Parvaty are employees at a hospital in Mumbai. They grapple daily with the opportunities and hardships of existence in the city. Balancing an immersive verité style with a touch of the surreal, Payal Kapadia’s Cannes Grand Prix-winning drama captures the many shades of working-class life in Mumbai. The result is a profound and deeply humanist meditation on urban migration and dislocation.
Kalpana Nair

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 285: Fri Oct 18

Grand Tour (Gomes, 2024): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 5.50pm

68th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (9th - 20th October 2024) DAY 10

With its date at the end of the year, London is a "festival of festivals", as Telegraph film critic Robbie Collin put it in one of his previews, so the films shown have mostly been seen and commented on by critics who have watched the features at such high-profile festivals as Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Sundance and Berlin.

So I'm making it simple with one recommendation a day. I will be concentrating on the repertory choices but I've also read the reviews of the contemporary releases and talked to and listened to the trusted critics all year and I am as confident as I can be that this is the pick of the movies within the parameters I have set. Firstly, there's no point highlighting the major gala films - they will be sold out quickly. Secondly, there is little to be gained in paying the higher Festival ticket prices to see films that are out in Britain soon. I will be returning to the London Festival films worthy of seeing and set to be released in the coming months on this blog as and when they get a general release in London.

Here then (from October 9th to October 20th) are the films you are likely to be able to get tickets for and the movies you are unlikely to see in London very soon unless you go the Festival. Here is the LFF's main website for the general information you need. Don't worry if some of the recommended films are sold out as there are always some tickets on offer which go on sale 30 minutes before each screening. Here is the information you need to get those standby tickets.

This film also screens at Curzon Mayfair on October 13th. Details here.

BFI introduction:
Molly and Edward, her British diplomat fiancé, are in love. But he seems nervous of commitment. Every possibility of an encounter at one location sees him charging off to another. Miguel Gomes’ sublime, lightly comic, formally inventive time-travelling journey, follows the lovers across Asia. It’s shot in his trademark lush B&W studio photography, with modern references appearing in colour. A joy.
Kristy Matheson

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 284: Thu Oct 17

The Ballad of Suzanne Cesaire (Hunt-Erlich, 2024): ICA Cinema, 6.45pm

68th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (9th - 20th October 2024) DAY 9

With its date at the end of the year, London is a "festival of festivals", as Telegraph film critic Robbie Collin put it in one of his previews, so the films shown have mostly been seen and commented on by critics who have watched the features at such high-profile festivals as Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Sundance and Berlin.

So I'm making it simple with one recommendation a day. I will be concentrating on the repertory choices but I've also read the reviews of the contemporary releases and talked to and listened to the trusted critics all year and I am as confident as I can be that this is the pick of the movies within the parameters I have set. Firstly, there's no point highlighting the major gala films - they will be sold out quickly. Secondly, there is little to be gained in paying the higher Festival ticket prices to see films that are out in Britain soon. I will be returning to the London Festival films worthy of seeing and set to be released in the coming months on this blog as and when they get a general release in London.

Here then (from October 9th to October 20th) are the films you are likely to be able to get tickets for and the movies you are unlikely to see in London very soon unless you go the Festival. Here is the LFF's main website for the general information you need. Don't worry if some of the recommended films are sold out as there are always some tickets on offer which go on sale 30 minutes before each screening. Here is the information you need to get those standby tickets.

This London Film Festival Experimenta Special Presentation also screens at BFI Southbank on October 19th. Details here. 

BFI introduction:
Restoring Suzanne Césaire’s legacy as a pioneer of Afro-Caribbean surrealism and co-founder of Tropiques feels like vital work. However, multidisciplinary artist Hunt-Ehrlich is in search of something beyond Césaire’s impressive yet underappreciated intellectual achievements, overshadowed as she has been her husband Aime Césaire; fittingly, the film offers up fragments of Suzanne’s life as a full-time school teacher, organiser and mother of six children. Guided by Suzanne’s writing and testimony from her family, the film seeks to honour lost memories and the unknowable. As the lead, Zita Hanrot - a new mother herself - says in the beginning, “we’re making a film about an artist who didn’t want to be remembered”. Resplendent in tropical light and the lush greenness of Martinique, this delicately layered metafictional essay evokes the unspoken, the almost disappeared whilst keeping our heroine’s radical voice startlingly present.
Hyun Jin Cho

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 283: Wed Oct 16

The Churning (Benegal, 1976): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 5.50pm

68th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (9th - 20th October 2024) DAY 8

With its date at the end of the year, London is a "festival of festivals", as the Telegraph film critic Robbie Collin put it in one of his previews, so the films shown have mostly been seen and commented on by critics who have watched the features at such high-profile festivals as Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Sundance and Berlin.

So I'm making it simple with one recommendation a day. I will be concentrating on the repertory choices but I've also read the reviews of the contemporary releases and talked to and listened to the trusted critics all year and I am as confident as I can be that this is the pick of the movies within the parameters I have set. Firstly, there's no point highlighting the major gala films - they will be sold out quickly. Secondly, there is little to be gained in paying the higher Festival ticket prices to see films that are out in Britain soon. I will be returning to the London Festival films worthy of seeing and set to be released in the coming months on this blog as and when they get a general release in London.

Here then (from October 9th to October 20th) are the films you are likely to be able to get tickets for and the movies you are unlikely to see in London very soon unless you go the Festival. Here is the LFF's main website for the general information you need. Don't worry if some of the recommended films are sold out as there are always some tickets on offer which go on sale 30 minutes before each screening. Here is the information you need to get those standby tickets.

BFI introduction:
When a city vet arrives in a poor village, he encounters shocking inequalities. Attempting to pay the dairy farmers a fair price for their milk, he rocks deep-rooted hierarchies and the stability of village life. Based on the true story of the world’s biggest dairy development programme, this is an extraordinary portrait of social change and the power of cinema itself.
Robin Baker

Here (and above) is the opening.

Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 282: Tue Oct 15

Manji (Masumura, 1964): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 6.15pm

68th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (9th - 20th October 2024) DAY 7

With its date at the end of the year, London is a "festival of festivals", as the Telegraph film critic Robbie Collin put it in one of his previews, so the films shown have mostly been seen and commented on by critics who have watched the features at such high-profile festivals as Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Sundance and Berlin.

So I'm making it simple with one recommendation a day. I will be concentrating on the repertory choices but I've also read the reviews of the contemporary releases and talked to and listened to the trusted critics all year and I am as confident as I can be that this is the pick of the movies within the parameters I have set. Firstly, there's no point highlighting the major gala films - they will be sold out quickly. Secondly, there is little to be gained in paying the higher Festival ticket prices to see films that are out in Britain soon. I will be returning to the London Festival films worthy of seeing and set to be released in the coming months on this blog as and when they get a general release in London.

Here then (from October 9th to October 20th) are the films you are likely to be able to get tickets for and the movies you are unlikely to see in London very soon unless you go the Festival. Here is the LFF's main website for the general information you need. Don't worry if some of the recommended films are sold out as there are always some tickets on offer which go on sale 30 minutes before each screening. Here is the information you need to get those standby tickets.

Time Out review:
Because it's adapted from an unimpeachable literary source (Junichiro Tanizaki's novel) and has a magnificent cast, this torrid melodrama verges on the status of art movie classic; but Yasuzo Masumura's earthy tastes keep it safely anchored in sexploitation territory. Bored, rich wife Sonoko (Kyoko Kishida), whose inherited wealth has set up her husband's law firm, grows infatuated with a younger woman she meets in art class. They become lovers. But Sonoko (who narrates the story to a silent psychiatrist) soon learns that Mitsuko (Ayako Wakao) is a deceitful and endlessly manipulative tease, dubiously involved with the supposedly impotent Eijiro (Yusuke Kawazu) and all too ready to draw Sonoko's husband Kotaro (Eiji Funakoshi) into her ranks of slavish admirers. As the plot descends into a miasma of suicide pacts, cross-manipulations, blackmail, tests of loyalty, fake pregnancies and absurd blood oaths, Masumura lifts it back up into the emotional overdrive which has made the film a pillar of its genre. Wakao (a Daiei contract actress who starred in nearly half of Masumura's films after both worked on Mizoguchi's Street of Shame) proves more than equal to a role which prefigures Hanna Schygulla's classy slut in The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant by nearly a decade. The Buddhist title connotes spiritual radiance.
Tony Rayns

Here (and above) are extracts.

Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 281: Mon Oct 14

Caught by the Tides (Zhangke, 2024): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 3pm

68th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (9th - 20th October 2024) DAY 6

With its date at the end of the year, London is a "festival of festivals", as the Telegraph film critic Robbie Collin put it in one of his previews, so the films shown have mostly been seen and commented on by critics who have watched the features at such high-profile festivals as Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Sundance and Berlin.

So I'm making it simple with one recommendation a day. I will be concentrating on the repertory choices but I've also read the reviews of the contemporary releases and talked to and listened to the trusted critics all year and I am as confident as I can be that this is the pick of the movies within the parameters I have set. Firstly, there's no point highlighting the major gala films - they will be sold out quickly. Secondly, there is little to be gained in paying the higher Festival ticket prices to see films that are out in Britain soon. I will be returning to the London Festival films worthy of seeing and set to be released in the coming months on this blog as and when they get a general release in London.

Here then (from October 9th to October 20th) are the films you are likely to be able to get tickets for and the movies you are unlikely to see in London very soon unless you go the Festival. Here is the LFF's main website for the general information you need. Don't worry if some of the recommended films are sold out as there are always some tickets on offer which go on sale 30 minutes before each screening. Here is the information you need to get those standby tickets.

Today's choice also screens at Curzon Mayfair on October 13th. Details here.

BFI introduction:
As if to prove there’s no finer cinematic chronicler of modern China, director Jia Zhangke repurposes his monumental oeuvre as a single entity. Blending documentary, previous features, musical numbers and multiple incarnations of regular star Zhao Tao, it’s an elusive love story and allusive national portrait, charting the path of a woman and a country through the ebb and flow of history’s tides.
Leigh Singer

Here (and above) is an extract.

Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 280: Sun Oct 13

The Talk of the Town (Stevens, 1942): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 12.15pm

68th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (9th - 20th October 2024) DAY 5

With its date at the end of the year, London is a "festival of festivals", as the Telegraph film critic Robbie Collin put it in one of his previews, so the films shown have mostly been seen and commented on by critics who have watched the features at such high-profile festivals as Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Sundance and Berlin.

So I'm making it simple with one recommendation a day. I will be concentrating on the repertory choices but I've also read the reviews of the contemporary releases and talked to and listened to the trusted critics all year and I am as confident as I can be that this is the pick of the movies within the parameters I have set. Firstly, there's no point highlighting the major gala films - they will be sold out quickly. Secondly, there is little to be gained in paying the higher Festival ticket prices to see films that are out in Britain soon. I will be returning to the London Festival films worthy of seeing and set to be released in the coming months on this blog as and when they get a general release in London.

Here then (from October 9th to October 20th) are the films you are likely to be able to get tickets for and the movies you are unlikely to see in London very soon unless you go the Festival. Here is the LFF's main website for the general information you need. Don't worry if some of the recommended films are sold out as there are always some tickets on offer which go on sale 30 minutes before each screening. Here is the information you need to get those standby tickets.

Time Out review:
An attractive serio-comic tale of civic corruption, with Cary Grant as a factory worker on the run from a trumped-up charge of arson and murder, Jean Arthur as the childhood friend with whom he seeks shelter, and Ronald Colman as the stuffy professor already ensconced as her lodger (and whose presence requires that Grant be passed off as the gardener when he tires of seclusion in the attic). The comedy of social proprieties as the inevitable triangle raises its head is nicely played against discussions in which the two men bring each other to a new understanding of the law and its application. Beautifully written by Irwin Shaw and Sidney Buchman, it's equally well directed and acted.
Tom Milne

Here (and above) is a trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 279: Sat Oct 12

No 1: The Sealed Soil (Nabili, 1977): ICA Cinema, 8.30pm

68th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (9th - 20th October 2024) DAY 4

With its date at the end of the year, London is a "festival of festivals", as the Telegraph film critic Robbie Collin put it in one of his previews, so the films shown have mostly been seen and commented on by critics who have watched the features at such high-profile festivals as Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Sundance and Berlin.

So I'm making it simple with one recommendation a day. I will be concentrating on the repertory choices but I've also read the reviews of the contemporary releases and talked to and listened to the trusted critics all year and I am as confident as I can be that this is the pick of the movies within the parameters I have set. Firstly, there's no point highlighting the major gala films - they will be sold out quickly. Secondly, there is little to be gained in paying the higher Festival ticket prices to see films that are out in Britain soon. I will be returning to the London Festival films worthy of seeing and set to be released in the coming months on this blog as and when they get a general release in London.

Here then (from October 9th to October 20th) are the films you are likely to be able to get tickets for and the movies you are unlikely to see in London very soon unless you go the Festival. Here is the LFF's main website for the general information you need. Don't worry if some of the recommended films are sold out as there are always some tickets on offer which go on sale 30 minutes before each screening. Here is the information you need to get those standby tickets.

BFI introduction:
As her community prepares to relocate to accommodate a government-mandated construction project, a young woman rebels against the restrictions imposed on her when she reaches marrying age by rejecting all suitors. Bressonian in its formal rigour and sense of detachment, the earliest complete surviving feature film directed by an Iranian woman is a hypnotic and quietly radical portrait of resistance, and a passionate rejection of patriarchy.
Jason Wood

Here (and above) is an interview with the director.

*************************

No 2: Dahomey (Diop, 2024): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 5.15pm

This choice also has screenings at Curzon Soho (October 14th) and the ICA Cinema (October 15th). You can find all the details here.

BFI introduction:
Preserved for 130 years in the vaults and vitrines of European institutions, Dahomey’s plundered icons dream infinitely. Mati Diop’s follow up to Atlantics, her acclaimed feature debut, blends the metaphysical with documentary to follow 26 of over 7,000 devotional and royal stolen objects as they are repatriated. A cool-headed yet fierce film, Dahomey captures the debate, anger, pride, joy and grief of the reunion.
Arike Oke

Here is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 278: Fri Oct 11

The Other Way Around (Trueba, 2024): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 1pm

68th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (9th - 20th October 2024) DAY 3

With its date at the end of the year, London is a "festival of festivals", as the Telegraph film critic Robbie Collin put it in one of his previews, so the films shown have mostly been seen and commented on by critics who have watched the features at such high-profile festivals as Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Sundance and Berlin.

So I'm making it simple with one recommendation a day. I will be concentrating on the repertory choices but I've also read the reviews of the contemporary releases and talked to and listened to the trusted critics all year and I am as confident as I can be that this is the pick of the movies within the parameters I have set. Firstly, there's no point highlighting the major gala films - they will be sold out quickly. Secondly, there is little to be gained in paying the higher Festival ticket prices to see films that are out in Britain soon. I will be returning to the London Festival films worthy of seeing and set to be released in the coming months on this blog as and when they get a general release in London.

Here then (from October 9th to October 20th) are the films you are likely to be able to get tickets for and the movies you are unlikely to see in London very soon unless you go the Festival. Here is the LFF's main website for the general information you need. Don't worry if some of the recommended films are sold out as there are always some tickets on offer which go on sale 30 minutes before each screening. Here is the information you need to get those standby tickets.

Today's choice also has two screenings at Curzon Soho on October 10th. You can find all the details here.

BFI introduction:
When cinephiles Ale and Alex decide to call it a day after 14 years together, they are determined to do things differently by throwing a celebratory party for family and friends. However, the couple’s idealistic plan is soon shown to be fraught with complications, because breaking up in the real world is not always as easy as it appears on the screen.
Maria Delgado

'The Other Way Around” is a refreshingly grown-up entry to a genre that seems to have got sillier and blander in recent years: in posing substantive questions about the nature of romance and relationships, it’s smarter than virtually any American studio romantic comedy of recent years.'
Adam Solomons, Indiewire

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 278: Thu Oct 10

La Cocina (Ruizpalacios, 2024): Curzon Mayfair, 5.45pm

68th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (9th - 20th October 2024) DAY 2

With its date at the end of the year, London is a "festival of festivals", as the Telegraph film critic Robbie Collin put it in one of his previews, so the films shown have mostly been seen and commented on by critics who have watched the features at such high-profile festivals as Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Sundance and Berlin.

So I'm making it simple with one recommendation a day. I will be concentrating on the repertory choices but I've also read the reviews of the contemporary releases and talked to and listened to the trusted critics all year and I am as confident as I can be that this is the pick of the movies within the parameters I have set. Firstly, there's no point highlighting the major gala films - they will be sold out quickly. Secondly, there is little to be gained in paying the higher Festival ticket prices to see films that are out in Britain soon. I will be returning to the London Festival films worthy of seeing and set to be released in the coming months on this blog as and when they get a general release in London.

Here then (from October 9th to October 20th) are the films you are likely to be able to get tickets for and the movies you are unlikely to see in London very soon unless you go the Festival. Here is the LFF's main website for the general information you need. Don't worry if some of the recommended films are sold out as there are always some tickets on offer which go on sale 30 minutes before each screening. Here is the information you need to get those standby tickets.

Today's film also has two more screenings (at Curzon Soho) on October 12th. You can find all the details here.

Guardian review:
For a cinematically exuberant burst of political urgency, the most arresting fiction in competition at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival – and a strong contender for top prize the Golden Bear – was La Cocina by Alonso Ruizpalacios, the Mexican director of 2021’s extraordinary docudrama hybrid A Cop Movie. Here he adapts The Kitchen, the 50s British drama by Arnold Wesker, transplanting it to New York, to a vast factory of a Times Square restaurant, where staff struggle to keep sane together through the rigours of a working day. Ruizpalacios focuses on the experience of the migrant workers, notably a harassed cook (Raúl Briones), who is in an intense, fraught relationship with a waitress (Rooney Mara, excellent in a far harder-edged role than usual). Apart from a beautifully contemplative lunchbreak interlude, La Cocina is nonstop – with bustling choreography of cast and camera, and an electrifying performance from Briones, on a par with early vintage Al Pacino. We might be feeling a bit stuffed with restaurant dramas, but La Cocina makes The Bear look like a cuddly cub and Boiling Point like a gentle simmer.
Joanathan Romney

Here (and above) is the trailer.

 

Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 277: Wed Oct 9

A Traveler's Needs (Hong Sangsoo, 2024): Curzon Soho, 6pm & 6.15pm

68th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (9th - 20th October 2024) DAY 1

Today is the opening day of the London Film Festival. With its date at the end of the year, London is a "festival of festivals", as the Telegraph film critic Robbie Collin put it in one of his previews, so the films shown have mostly been seen and commented on by critics who have watched the features at such high-profile festivals as Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Sundance and Berlin.

So I'm making it simple with one recommendation a day. I will be concentrating on the repertory choices but I've also read the reviews of the contemporary releases and talked to and listened to the trusted critics all year and I am as confident as I can be that this is the pick of the movies within the parameters I have set. Firstly, there's no point highlighting the major gala films - they will be sold out quickly. Secondly, there is little to be gained in paying the higher Festival ticket prices to see films that are out in Britain soon. I will be returning to the London Festival films worthy of seeing and set to be released in the coming months on this blog as and when they get a general release in London.

Here then (from October 9th to October 20th) are the films you are likely to be able to get tickets for and the movies you are unlikely to see in London very soon unless you go the Festival. Here is the LFF's main website for the general information you need. Don't worry if some of the recommended films are sold out as there are always some tickets on offer which go on sale 30 minutes before each screening. Here is the information you need to get those standby tickets.

Today's film also screens at Curzon Mayfair on October 14th and BFI Southbank on October 19th. You can find all the details here.

BFI introduction:
In her third collaboration with South Korea’s super-prolific auteur, Isabelle Huppert – here at her most slyly mischievous – plays Iris, a Frenchwoman in Korea who offers language classes using her own highly oblique method. As mysteries thicken around Iris and her method, this teasingly elusive miniature offers poetic insight and philosophical wit, together with delicious performances from a cast including Hong regulars Lee Hyeyoung and Kwon Haehyo.
Jonathan Romney

Here (and above) is an extract.

Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 276: Tue Oct 8

The House That Screamed (Serridor, 1969): Prince Charles Cinema, 6pm

In 19th century southern France, Teresa (Cristina Galbó) enrolls in an isolated boarding school for ‘difficult’ girls, brought in to be rehabilitated by the iron-fisted Madame Fourneau (Lilli Palmer). The situation turns dark when Teresa discovers students have been disappearing under mysterious circumstances.

This screening as part of Gynophobia: A Film Season Exploring the Monstrous-Feminine. Gynophobia is dedicated to exploring representations of monstrous women in horror, inspired by Barbara Creed’s concept of the ‘Monstrous-Feminine’. This season looks to embody the specific formal and stylistic properties of 70s horror, with introductions before each film prompting analysis and questioning of the societal attitudes inherent in their production and exhibition. Gynophobia is both an appreciation of the horror genre and a feminist retrospective, examining the roles and representations of women in this pivotal era of film history. The season aims to highlight how these films reflect and challenge the cultural shifts of their time, offering a thought-provoking experience that celebrates and critiques the portrayal of the monstrous-feminine in horror cinema.

The screening is presented in partnership with the National Film & Television School.

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 275: Mon Oct 7

The Legend of Hell House (Hough, 1973): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 6.20pm

This 35mm presentation, also screening on September 28th, is part of the excellent Martin Scorsese's Hidden Gems of British Cinema season at BFI Southbank. You can find all the details here.

BFI introduction:
Adapting his own novel, Richard Matheson’s haunted house classic has a dying multi-millionaire commission a team of paranormal experts to investigate the titular Hell House, seeking to answer the perennial question about survival after death. Director JohnHough maintains a menacing mood throughout with his use of jarring camera angles, all enhanced by Brian Hodgson and Delia Derbyshire’s unsettling electronic score.
James Bell

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 274: Sun Oct 6

The Wall (Chopra, 1975): Barbican Cinema, 3pm

This film is part of the Barbican's excellent 'Rewriting the Rules: Pioneering Indian Cinema after 1970' season. You can find the full details here.

Time Out review:
Evoking ‘Mother India’ with its story of a good son pitched against a bad one and a mother caught between them, ‘Deewaar’ places an anti-hero centrestage. Amitabh Bachchan excels as the simmering Vijay, who turns to criminality to provide for his mum, while brother Ravi (Kapoor) becomes a cop. Inevitably, their paths must cross. ‘Deewaar’ was Bachchan’s first step on the road to mega-stardom and it epitomises his status as the bristling, angry young man railing against all around him.

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 273: Sat Oct 5

Don't Look Now (Roeg, 1973): Prince Charles Cinema, 6pm

This screening is part of the Horroctober season at the Prince Charles Cinema.

Time Out review: 
A superbly chilling essay in the supernatural, adapted from Daphne du Maurier's short story about a couple, shattered by the death of their small daughter, who go to Venice to forget. There, amid the hostile silences of an off-season resort, they are approached by a blind woman with a message of warning from the dead child; and half- hoping, half-resisting, they are sucked into a terrifying vortex of time where disaster may be foretold but not forestalled. Conceived in Nicolas Roeg's usual imagistic style and predicated upon a series of ominous associations (water, darkness, red, shattering glass), it's hypnotically brilliant as it works remorselessly toward a sense of dislocation in time; an undermining of all the senses, in fact, perfectly exemplified by Donald Sutherland's marvellous Hitchcockian walk through a dark alley where a banging shutter, a hoarse cry, a light extinguished at a window, all recur as in a dream, escalating into terror the second time round because a hint of something seen, a mere shadow, may have been the dead child.
Tom Milne

Here is Mark Cousins’ introduction to the film in his Videodrome series from BBC TV.

Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 272: Fri Oct 4

Young Frankenstein (Brooks, 1974): Prince Charles Cinema, 12.30pm

This film, which also screens on October 6th, is part of the Horroctober season at the Prince Charles.

Chicago Reader review:
More about the myth of Karloff than the monster, this Mel Brooks pastiche (1974) is probably his best early film: within limits, it has unity, pace, and even a dramatic interest of sorts. Its satisfying look, which Brooks has yet to equal, is probably due to Dale Hennesy’s production design and Gerald Hirschfeld’s polished black-and-white cinematography.
Don Druker

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 271: Thu Oct 3

Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde (Baker, 1971): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 6.15pm

This film, which also screens on September 28th, is part of the excellent Martin Scorsese's Hidden gems of British Cinema season at BFI Southbank. Details here. Tonight's screening is introduced by Sam Clemens, son of the screenwriter Brian Clemens.

BFI introduction:
Hammer’s third Jekyll and Hyde adaptation subverts the tale into a candid exposé of male sexuality and desire. Into this, screenwriter Brian Clemens gleefully throws a host of Victorian villains, including Burke and Hare, and Jack the Ripper. The casting of Ralph Bates and Martine Beswick as the titular pair is inspired and the latter, as Mrs Hyde, turns in a performance of incredible sensuality laced with bloodlust.
Josephine Botting

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 270: Wed Oct 2

Twins of Evil (Hough, 1971): Prince Charles Cinema, 6.15pm

‘One Uses Her Beauty For Love! One Uses Her Lure For Blood!’ Identical orphaned sisters Frieda and Maria (Madeleine and Mary Collinson) move from Venice to Karnstein to live with their witch hunter uncle, Gustav Weil (Peter Cushing). As the head of the Puritan group, Gustav seeks to cleanse his village of evil, while the wicked Count Karnstein (Damien Thomas) dabbles in Satanism and yields to the allure of Vampirism. While Frieda falls under the Count’s sinister influence, the innocent Maria is caught up in the fray and threatened with execution for Witchcraft.

This 35mm presentation is screening as part of Gynophobia: A Film Season Exploring the Monstrous-Feminine. Gynophobia is dedicated to exploring representations of monstrous women in horror, inspired by Barbara Creed’s concept of the ‘Monstrous-Feminine’. This season looks to embody the specific formal and stylistic properties of 70s horror, with introductions before each film prompting analysis and questioning of the societal attitudes inherent in their production and exhibition. Gynophobia is both an appreciation of the horror genre and a feminist retrospective, examining the roles and representations of women in this pivotal era of film history. The season aims to highlight how these films reflect and challenge the cultural shifts of their time, offering a thought-provoking experience that celebrates and critiques the portrayal of the monstrous-feminine in horror cinema.

The screening is presented in partnership with the National Film & Television School.

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 269: Tue Oct 1

La Musica (Duras, 1967): Cine Lumiere, 6.30pm

This great Marguerite Duras directorial debut also screens on Septmber 29th. Details here.

In 1966, Marguerite Duras – already established as a prolific writer, but looking for an escape from the world of publishing – made her debut as a filmmaker with La Musica, based on a short play she had written a year earlier. Co-directed with Paul Seban – with whom she had made television – La Musica is a psychological three-hander that delicately dissects love after separation. The paths of two women and a man cross in a provincial town in the North of France. A young American woman (Julie Dassin, who, for Duras, possessed “a kind of wildness combined with a certain purity”) accosts the man (Robert Hossein) in a café. She is ostensibly on holiday, though the true reasons behind her stay are less clear. They spend the afternoon together. He is there to formalise his divorce from a woman (the ever-marvellous Delphine Seyrig), in the town in which they had once lived. In an empty hotel, the couple has a final conversation: with corridors, rooms and lobbies providing containers for their reminiscences, confessions, and renewed feelings. With exquisite staging and camerawork by Sacha Vierny, who had worked on Hiroshima mon amour and Last Year at Marienbad.

Here (and above) is an extract.

Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 268: Mon Sep 30

Hue and Cry (Crichton, 1947): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 6.15pm

This 35mm presentation is part of the excellent Martin Scorsese's Hidden gems of British Cinema season at BFI Southbank. Details here.

Time Out review:
Reminiscent of Emil and the Detectives as a gang of East End kids excitedly realise that their favourite blood-and-thunder comic is being used as a means of communication by crooks, and (since the police turn a deaf ear) set out in hot pursuit. One of Ealing's first postwar successes, it is given an enormous boost by locations around the bomb sites of London's East End and by Alastair Sim's sinister eccentricities as the author of the serial in question. Its charm, in these days of headlines about kids and video nasties, is of another world: capturing a blonde moll (Valerie White) and requiring information, the gang subject her to the most vicious tortures they can think of - tickling by feather (which doesn't work) and menace by white mouse (which does).
Tom Milne

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 267: Sun Sep 29

The Dupes (Saleh, 1972): Close-Up Cinema, 8pm

This is part of the Never on Sunday strand at Close-Up, a series of screenings of rare classics, archive masterpieces, obscure delights and forgotten gems carefully curated and introduced by Ehsan Khoshbakht and taking place the last Sunday of each month at the cinema.

BFI introduction:
Three Palestinian refugees from three different generations attempt to flee to Kuwait through a stark desert, concealed in the empty tank of a truck. Based on the acclaimed novella by author Ghassan Kanafani – a militant intellectual assassinated by Mossad in 1972 – this allegorical statement on the Palestinian struggle makes for urgent viewing. It’s shockingly prescient and, with its chilling universal perspective, quietly devastating.
Giulia Saccogna

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 266: Sat Sep 28

Green Snake (Hark, 1993): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 6.20pm

This presentation, which also screens on September 12th, is part of the Maggie Cheung season at BFI Southbank is an opportunity to catch the big-screen outing of this rarely shown, colourful, sensuous fairytale.

BFI introduction:
In what is probably Maggie Cheung’s most intriguing and wild film, she plays Green Snake, a demon spirit who has been training to take the form of a human woman. However, once she walks the earth, her accompanying sister spirit White Snake falls in love with a man. Ridiculously fun, the film gives Cheung a fabulous role, which finds her slithering, scathing and seducing with no small amount of allure.

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 265: Fri Sep 27

It Always Rains on Sunday (Hamer, 1947): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 8.50pm

Director Robert Hamer is one of the unsung heroes of British cinema. His best-known film is Kind Hearts and Coronets, the blackest of jet-black comedies, but this noirish East end thriller is thoroughly deserving of attention too. Echoes of the work of Carne, Renoir and Lang have been detected in this fatalistic tale of Googie Withers and the ex-boyfriend convict who comes back into her life. This 35mm presentation, which also screens on September 8th, is part of the excellent Martin Scorsese's Hidden gems of British Cinema season at BFI Southbank. Details here.
 
Chicago Reader review:
Rooted in the film noir of the 40s but anticipating the kitchen sink realism of the 50s, this superlative British drama (1947) transpires in the dingy Bethnal Green neighborhood of east London, where it probably rains Monday through Saturday as well. A former barmaid (Googie Withers) grimly keeps up her end of a loveless working-class marriage, barely concealing her jealousy toward her attractive young stepdaughters. When her former lover (John McCallum) breaks out of Dartmoor Prison and shows up at her doorstep, she can't help but take him in. Robert Hamer, best known for directing Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), shows a fluency with noir's shadowy visual vocabulary, but what really links this to the genre is its sense of haunting regret and lost opportunity.
JR Jones
 
Here (and above) is an extract.