UK Film Review Forum

(Glasgow Film Festival: Film At Home; Fri 26 Feb to Mon 01 Mar) https://glasgowfilm.org/glasgow-film-festival/shows/my-wonderful-wanda-ctbc "My Wonderful Wanda" Wanda (Agnieszka Grochowska) nurses Josef (André Jung), 'The Patriarch' of the wealthy 'Wegmeister-Gloor' family. When an unexpected complication arises, family secrets come to light and arrangements are made to try and appease everyone in this biting family drama. "My Wonderful Wanda" is an ensemble film, it’s about parents and children and what members of a family can do to each other. It’s not only Wanda who wants to be treated with respect and dignity; each member of the family longs for that as well. Wanda is the protagonist, she’s the catalyst for the developments and changes in the other characters, but these are just as interesting: a prosperous family gets themselves a cheap carer for the head of their family, but everyone in the family avails of her assistance to their own ends. Telling this story in all it's consequences allows for varying perspectives and surprising plot twists. In the end, Wanda has indeed helped the family, but to a much greater extent than they've imagined. And her relationship with her own family in Poland has also benefited from these events. The film portrays Wanda as a victim. Wanda is being exploited, of course. But she also goes along with it even to the extent that she secretly sleeps with her patient for money. So she can’t view herself as a victim. Wanda is exploiting the family, too. And what’s more, she gets along well with Josef. It’s simply a deal that brings her added value. Her conscious trading of 'sex for money' paradoxically lends Wanda power. Portraying her as a victim would’ve been too easy and also would’ve made it impossible to show her contradictory and strong aspects. Wanda thus turns the tables on the exploitation/subservience, above/below issues. The house has to display the family’s prosperity without seeming ostentatious or off-putting. Content-wise the film sees the location as an island, a metaphor, the story could take place anywhere where people are wealthy and able to isolate themselves. Family, you can’t live with them, you can’t live without them. Family is a motif we return to again and again. What's it about this strange microcosm, this genetically random family unit in which you feel secure or maybe even restrained? Family is a very broad narrative field, and everyone can feel their way into it somehow because everyone has family. 'The Wegmeister-Gloors' are put to the test, cracks appear, and unpleasant facts come to light. All it's members are forced to be honest with each other. This is liberating, at times funny, yet also very painful on occasion. The family almost falls apart; but for this is nonetheless a film about getting closer. "My Wonderful Wanda" thematizes the current issue of care migration. The outpatient care market is booming in 'Switzerland'. Agencies apply phrases like 'cheap, caring, warm-hearted, and there for you round the clock' when brokering staff from 'Eastern Europe' to care for the elderly in their residences rather than in a home. Increasingly often, over-qualified women from 'Poland' and 'Hungary' are commuting monthly between their own families and 'Swiss' households. The film is interested in what happens when a complete stranger gains deep insight into a family’s structure, and the inevitable intimacy that ensues. The model is often referred to as a winwin situation; relatives in need of care don’t have to be placed in a home, the family saves money, and the carers earn much more here than in their homelands. But this view is too one-sided. We’re ignoring the fact that these women have private lives, their own families, a daily routine they've to give up, and that money nonetheless remains scarce back home. So the benefits are very one-sided. What has to happen for these parties to meet on equal footing and for these exchanges to become fair? But there's also room for funny or absurd moments. There's room for imagination and suggestions. So not a classic social drama, but rather a 'comédie très humaine'. And the narrative tone is dry and sober to avoid moralizing.

(Glasgow Film Festival: Film AT Home; Thu 25 Feb to Sun 28 Feb) https://glasgowfilm.org/glasgow-film-festival/shows/the-mauritanian-n-c-15 "The Mauritanian" "The Mauritanian" follows the remarkable true story of Mohamedou Ould Slahi (Tahar Rahim), who was captured by 'The U.S. Government' and imprisoned for years without trial at 'Guantanamo' Bay (GTMO). It's an inspiring account of survival against all odds as Slahi, in his fight for freedom, finds allies in defence attorney Nancy Hollander (Jodie Foster) and her associate Teri Duncan (Shailene Woodley). Through Nancy and Teri’s controversial advocacy and evidence uncovered by formidable military prosecutor Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Couch (Benedict Cumberbatch), a shocking and far-reaching conspiracy is revealed. "The Mauritanian" is a commentary on the importance of 'The Rule Of Law' and extremism of all kinds, but is also a tender, funny, uplifting film about Mohamedou, an extraordinary man whose humanity triumphed, leaving those around him profoundly changed. Hey this is what it’s like to be ripped apart and ripped from your family and taken to some place you've no idea where you're. The story is driven by Mohamedou who's a transcendent person, a philosopher, he’s so witty and so compassionate. Mohamedou is charming and funny and not what you expect, from an internationally wanted, excused, terrorist, criminal who's accused of recruiting people for '9/11' and financing terror. He’s the opposite of what you imagine, he’s so in love with 'American' culture, he can quote every line of 'The Big Lebowski', he knows it by heart because he watched it 110 times while he's in prison. This guy has been through hell like this and at the end didn’t hold any grudge against anyone. He's a hero, an innocent man imprisoned and tortured. The incredible grace of forgiveness that Mohamedou practices through all of that, everyone can hopefully learn through what's a very difficult time in the world. His forgiveness is what makes him so special and what saves him to not fall into madness. He’s not angry at all, it’s impressive, he has the right to be angry, but he’s not. It takes a soul that’s so strong and whatever his life brings him for the rest of his life, he’s here to move mountains, and he already is. He’s changing the world, and his effect will go on for centuries simply by the energy that he carries into every moment of his life. Nancy Hollander is an 'International Criminal Defence Attorney', who fights for Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s release. Most of Mohamedou’s contact with Nancy happened in a room identical to the cell that he occupied when he entered the torture program, and after that, when he becomes a ‘cooperating prisoner’ he's interned in the same kind of cell, but with less restrictions. Nancy feels very maternal towards him, and you can just see the twinkle in both of their eyes. It’s so obvious they really care about one another. Nancy is an extraordinarily brilliant woman who's just a ball of contradictions. She's this very structured thinker, very smart, very measured, she’s very careful about everything she says and yet she loves her red lipstick and nail polish. She loves fast cars, she likes sports-cars, she likes digital equipment and yet she's this public defender and she has this long road as an activist. So many parts of her are conflicting, and that’s what’s beautiful about real characters, real people. Real people are not all just one thing. Nancy is really a combination of so many things. She's unrelenting, she's not sentimental, and she's a career fighter. It's a tricky character. It's been very surreal for everybody, for Mohamedou and certainly for Nancy to see the recreation of 'GTMO'; to see the camp set up, to see the barbed wire, and fencing and the concrete walkways, the kind of sad air conditioners; and all of the military men in their various regalia. It’s hard not to feel like you’re back in that environment. All the dark parts of the film are cool grey and concrete, and the film slightly desaturated and darkened a lot of the 'Guantanamo' interior colors just so that photographically, it's a little bit more sombre and a bit more depressing. That part of the film is all a continuous color, whereas Nancy's world in New Mexico has warmer colors, plants, natural fabrics and wood. Nancy works alongside Teri Duncan, who's an amalgamation of two attorneys, Teri Duncan and Sylvia Royce (Justine Mitchell). Teri shares a lot, she's very open, you know it’s scary to go up against the government; it’s scary to walk into something without knowing all angles and all sides of the equation, but more than anything, Teri’s heart lies in justice and her heart lies in the simple truths of like compassionate, and neighborly humanity. That overrode any fear that maybe she had. There's that warm.energy we need from that character. Neil Buckland (Zachary Levi), a 'Federal' agent is and old friend of Lt. Colonel Stuart Couch. Neil is an old school buddy of Stuart’s who happens to also be very entrenched in this specific case and these things that went down at 'Guantanamo'. He works for one of the intelligence agencies or branches within 'The U.S. Government' and so therefore is a bit of a gatekeeper when it comes to certain information that Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Couch needs in order to run a fair trial in prosecuting Mohamedou. Neil proves to be a little less than helpful in that regard because of his own traumas he felt through '9/11'. It's causing him a lot of fear and unfortunate anger and hate that a lot of people are possessed with in that time. When something as tragic as that happens, trauma can really screw people up. So, that’s where Neil’s at and then ultimately also has this redemptive moment towards the end of the film which shows you that people are more than what meets the eye, we're all 360 degree of people. He's not the most savoury character in the story. Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Couch's buddy from flight training school was one of the co-pilots on one of the planes that flew into 'The South Tower', so he starts from there, as well as being a military lawyer. He’s also a 'Christian' man that wants to do justice and wants to bring people to justice. It’s an extraordinary position to be in at the beginning of this film because you go ‘well, okay I can understand why he just wants to see this guy punished’. So what happens to him in the journey of this film is he discovers through pushing and pushing and knocking on closed doors that eventually these confessions have been extracted and they include accounts of torture, of waterboarding and various other contraventions of 'The Geneva Human Rights Accord', so he then takes a stand against his superiors and says; ' I refuse to prosecute this case', this is wrong, it's unlawful, it's undemocratic, un-'American' and un-'Christian'. And we guess it’s kind of where our sympathies lie most in the film, with someone who has every reason to want to find and persecute the perpetrator of that kind of an atrocity, that unforgivable act of terrorism, but in the process of looking at the supposed rock-solid confessions realises they're all extracted under torture; that’s not the way to get evidence. That’s not the way to behave in the rule of law. He's a man who a lot of the audience will think is deeply unsympathetic to begin with but right from the beginning you feel like ‘ok this guy, is part of the group, part of the military machine' but there's something about him which is more thoughtful, more humorous. Every character in the film is not all that they’re cracked up to be, and there’s depth and complexity in all of us. The film is based on the book ‘Guantánamo Diary’, published in 'The U.K.' in 2015 by Jamie Byng from 'Canongate'. The movie isn’t a direct adaptation of the book, the book is Mohamedou’s autobiography so he can’t tell the story from the other perspectives. The film covers the first two thirds of the story, until his appeal. 'GTMO' (Guantanamo Bay), one of the world’s most notorious detention camps, is still officially a secret and the plans of the environment aren’t available anywhere a lot of imagery has got out, but it’s not very well labelled. We were all so shaken up by the events of '9/11' that there was such fear in America, but we didn’t think very much about who was being interned. We've to be fair to all of the parties because we really believe that the truest stories are the ones where there just aren’t any bad guys. Where it’s just human beings that come together, trying to do the best that they can, but they’re guided by fear and there's a lesson in this story; is that impulse, that fear impulse is so strong and unfortunately it was in the era of 'Guantanamo', and in the era of '9/11', which took over 'The American' psyche. We're making decisions, we're making international foreign policy decisions by fear instead of using the laws and the rules that we knew. It’s a movie, it’s not just a series of events that happened you know? What we all have in common is greater than what divides us. It's something about the indefatigable joy of the human spirit. It's this combination of politics and an outrageous crime against humanity. The law is something really interesting, how it works and the intricacies of it, and you know, how our country is shaped by that. How the world is shaped by that. Any type of injustice, any type of tragedy when it comes to our failure as human beings to fully see another human being and put them through fair trial and properly practiced democracy, really gets our blood boiling. It’s a wisdom that says everything that every single ancient religious, biblical or institutional text has ever said, which is ‘just be kind to one another’, ‘love your neighbour’, ‘take care of one another’, ‘forgive’, ‘show up’. It strips back all the distraction and chaos of consumerism and materialism and plants you right back down into the true seat of your soul.

(Glasgow Film Festival: Film At Home; Wed 24 Feb to Sat 27 Feb) https://glasgowfilm.org/glasgow-film-festival/shows/minari-n-c-15 "Minari" It’s 'The 1980s', and David (Alan S. Kim), a seven-year-old 'Korean American' boy, is faced with new surroundings and a different way of life when his father, Jacob (Steven Yeun), moves their family from 'The West Coast' to rural 'Arkansas' in search of their own 'American Dream'. David and his sister Anne (Noel Cho) have mixed feelings about this move; at first excited by their new mobile home, they soon grow bored being in a backwater. His wife, Monica (Yeri Han), is aghast that they live in a mobile home in the middle of nowhere, and naughty little David and Anne are bored and aimless. When his sly, equally mischievous grandmother Soonja (Youn Yuh-jung) arrives from 'Korea' to live with them, her unfamiliar ways arouse David’s curiosity. The arrival of their foul-mouthed, but incredibly loving grandmother brings new energy to the family dynamic, but Jacob’s determination to make it as a successful farmer throws the family’s finances, and it's relationships Meanwhile, Jacob, hell-bent on creating a farm on untapped soil, throws their finances, his marriage, and the stability of the family into jeopardy. Amidst the instability and challenges of this new life in the rugged 'Ozarks', "Minari" shows the undeniable resilience of family and what really makes a home. It all begins as recent 'Korean' arrival Jacob whisks his family from 'California' to 'Arkansas', determined to carve out the rugged independence of farm life, even if it's one on shaky ground in 'The US' of 'The 1980s'. While Jacob sees Arkansas as a land of opportunity, the rest of his clan is flummoxed by their unforeseen move to a new life on a pint-sized piece of land in the far-flung 'Ozarks'. But it's two unlikely family members at opposite ends of the spectrum, wide-eyed, unruly seven-year-old David; and his equally defiant, just-off- the-plane-from-'Korea' grandma Soonja, who start to forge the family’s new path. In the midst of profound change, they clash at first, but soon discover the imperfect but magical bonds that root the family to their past as they reach towards the future. Jacob takes deep pride in his self-reliance while his wife Monica pragmatically tries to keep family life intact amid the chaos Jacob has whipped up with the move. Oldest sister Anne rapidly gains savvy and responsibility as she's handed big, unasked-for responsibilities, while David mischievously tries to repel his newly arrived grandmother Soonja, who upends the fragile peace with her foul-mouthed but perceptive commentary. Then there’s the humor and humanity of Jacob’s employee Paul (Will Patton), a fervent 'Pentecostal' in a perpetual state of repentance. He has a more unusual vision for his life. You root for Jacob because he’s doing this terribly risky thing, taking his family to this crazy place without even consulting them and putting them on the edge of disaster. You could easily despise this guy and not trust him at all. We've to understand of what it’s like to be Jacob, to be thirtysomething and to have kids relying on you but also have this fire to pursue your own ideas of success and happiness. Jacob holds firm to the idea that ultimately David and Anne will benefit from his dream, once the dust settles. But while Jacob’s wife Monica admires his aspirations, that doesn’t mean she can easily embrace life in an 'Arkansas' trailer in the middle of nowhere. She’s anxious about the family’s isolation, and about where her own life and marriage goes from here; even as she transforms their trailer into a place that increasingly feels like home. As "Minari" builds, David witnesses his father’s dream waver on the edge of absurdity, then near catastrophe as it seems the family’s future might literally go up in smoke. David offers an impish, joyful way into complicated memories, but he also offered something else, that open, awed-by-it-all spirit that can illuminate the beautiful strangeness of life. With his lack of language for what it means to be an immigrant, David becomes a conduit for the feeling of an entire unmoored family trying to find their bearings. Conjuring David’s boyish exuberance, angst, and cheekiness is a particular revelation, merging the child and parent within him. There’s a dance going on where David is a creation of two opposing things; out inner memories of being scared, excited, and curious as a kid. An important part of Anne’s character is that she’s serious about caring for the people she loves, There are so many little moments, like when Jacob’s digging the well and David’s sits there looking bored. The film’s momentum completely opens up when Soonja arrives. She’s vulgar and has a wicked sense of humor, but what we find interesting is that quite often salvation comes from someone like that. Somehow, she might embody ideals of tolerance and love more than anyone. For all the tumultuous changes in David’s life, nothing sets off more sparks than the arrival of Soonja, who, much to David’s abject horror, moves into his bedroom, making them instant rivals. To David, Soonja can’t possibly be a real grandmother. She certainly doesn’t bake cookies or tenderly dote. She smells weird, gets a kick out of teasing him, and is as foul-mouthed as anyone he’s met. Nevertheless, in ways David cannot immediately see, he and Soonja share much in common; both are spirited rebels, both are physically vulnerable, and both are linchpins of the family, with Soonja connecting them to where they’ve come from just as David points to an unseen future. And when David pulls a boyish prank on Soonja, hoping that will make her go away, it instead binds them closer as David realizes Soonja understands him better than he could have known. Salvation is more directly sought by the family’s invaluable neighbor, who lends Jacob the help he needs to tend to his crops. This is Paul, a completely committed 'Pentecostal$ who speaks in tongues but doesn’t say much about the reasons he's driven to make so many amends. Even as the ferocity of Paul’s faith is a mystery and at times an affront to Jacob, no one in David’s family can quite shake the strange, poignant beauty of Paul’s kindness to them. The film uses the intensity of Paul’s belief as a means to reveal who he's as a person. Paul is always an important character. The companionship he finds with Jacob speaks to how two people can come from entirely different backgrounds, yet find a closeness rooted simply in shared work. Like Jacob, Paul’s a man living in the gaps. He's alone, misunderstood, and burdened. Jacob relates to that intrinsically, even if he sees himself as a man who believes only in science and hard work. They both have their beliefs, but at core, they’re just two lonely dudes trying to do their thing, which is their connection. Jacob and Paul discover they can simply be themselves. As 'The Arkansas Dream' threatens to dry up and upend each member of the family, the film explores how a family navigates not only the very specific dilemmas of assimilating into rural America but also broader questions of elemental humanity, the gaps we all wrestle with between family ties and independence, faith and skepticism, feeling like an outsider and yearning to belong. Though each character has their own comic plight, there's no judgement or satire. Too often you see people in American films speaking English who would not in their real lives. But the more authentically a film depicts the details of how people really live, the more meaningful it's. There’s a dissonance to speaking 'Korean' at home that you can’t get at any other way. Two human beings trying to exist together is difficult enough, but when you add the pressure that they’re under there are going to be cracks. Just as working his own patch of land is the lure for David’s father to head for Arkansas, so too is the power of the land woven throughout "Minari". This family might speak 'Korean', but their fates are as tied to the potential and peril in 'The American' soil as the characters in John Ford’s "Grapes Of Wrath", George Stevens’ "Giant", William Wyler’s "Big Country", or Terrence Malick’s "Days Of Heaven". There’s a constant level of risk in farming that so few movies let you feel. Named for a peppery 'Korean' herb that thrives best in it's second season, "Minari" is a tender, funny, evocative ode to how one generation of a family risks everything to plant the dreams of the next. The film unspools with all the vividness of a lived memory. While in it's basic outlines "Minari" might seem to be a story we know; a tale of immigrants making a go at their own vision of 'The American Dream; the film brings a fresh and illuminating take. For within the film’s at once playful, powerful, and candidly detailed family remembrances comes a larger story: the impact of the journey on a new generation of young 'Americans'. It's a deeply personal immersion into reconciling two worlds, with boundless affection for both. There’s so much more drawing us together as human beings than the superficial categories we have created. For some, "Minari" might be a chance to see a 'Korean American' finally telling the story, but we've find these characters mean just as much to people from 'Arkansas', or from 'New York', or anywhere. Loving people is a lot of work, and things will go awry at times, but at the end of the day you have that love and it’s real and so meaningful. All people have their masks, all people have their triumphs and their failings.