We start with a beautifully lit underwater shot, seemingly of an ocean floor, as Alexandre Desplat’s gentle score floats effortlessly to us. We move with the camera into the hallway of an apartment block, then into the front room of a lady’s apartment, the lady in question asleep on the sofa, floating herself along with all her belongings as still the water submerges the setting. The beauty of this shot, of the setting, of the colour, of the score, could be described for pages and pages. In terms of style and direction, The Shape of Water (2017) is one of the strongest of the year. The Academy so too agrees with this; Guillermo del Toro picked up the Oscar for Best Director. The Shape of Water however is not a perfect film, and in fact it is not even a great film. It is stylish and pretty, but it lacks any real substance and is guilty of muddling along with its clichéd and predictable plot right to the very end. It would not be surprising if it turned out del Toro plucked his characters, the majority of them at least, from a stock character book. There is the ultimate baddie who shows no decency ever, for reasons unexplained. There is that one who is bad at first (although never as bad as the ultimate baddie), but then becomes kind of good along the way. You have the friend of the protagonist, who is quite simply just a nice person but never becomes anything more than that. The actors all deliver their parts well, but the characters simply support the predictable nature which is all too apparent in del Toro’s film. Sally Hawkins and Richard Jenkins give the best performances, and unsurprisingly play the most well-rounded and realistic characters. The former is, as you will know, the lead role, a mute cleaner by the name of Elisa working at a secret government laboratory. She ultimately becomes romantically involved with an Amphibian Man who arrives at the laboratory after being captured from the Amazon River. Hawkins is masterful in her delivery. There is a scene when she is describing her feelings for the Amphibian Man with frantic hand gestures and grimaced facial expressions, and it is this scene that lives long in the memory and emotionally leaves a mark. You see her isolation in the world and the hope that the Amphibian Man has given her. Her neighbour and confidante, Giles, is similarly isolated in society due to his homosexuality; this is engrained only deeper after a particularly vile experience at the hands of a diner waiter. This theme of isolation, of being different to “the norm”, is one of the bright parts of this film, but it is often explored in too shallow a way. Scenes such as Elisa describing her feelings are, unfortunately, far and few between. Del Toro has created worlds of fantasy and fascination a number of times previously – his first feature film, Cronos (1993), gifted us a wonderful world of horror and intrigue. The Shape of Water has imagination behind it, undoubtedly, but it struggles to meet the heights of previous films. Even arguably Pacific Rim (2013) had more depth to its imagination than del Toro’s latest release. The Shape of Water is sadly a long way behind del Toro’s finest film, Pan’s Labyrinth (2006).This film was beautifully shot, as The Shape of Water is, but it also had emotional impact and an original fantasy story set to the brutal backdrop of the Spanish Civil War. The Shape of Water has many strengths and excels in telling a stylised story, but it struggles to be much more of that. Del Toro is clearly a great mind within cinema, and is deserving of his place among the industry’s most original and innovative directors and writers. This ultimately cannot disguise his underdeveloped and often underwhelming latest release.

(London Film Festival, October 11th, 2018, Picturehouse Central, 18:15) "Lizzie" "Lizzie" is a psychological thriller based on the infamous 1892 axe murder of 'The Borden Family' in 'Fall River', Massachusetts. The film explores Lizzie Borden’s (Chloë Sevigny) life, focusing on the period leading up to the murders and their immediate aftermath, and reveals many layers of the strange, fragile woman who stood accused of the brutal crime. As an unmarried woman of 32, and a social outcast, Lizzie lives a claustrophobic life under her father’s Andrew (Jamey Sheridan) cold and domineering control. When Bridget Sullivan (Kristen Stewart), a young maid, comes to work for the family, Lizzie finds a sympathetic, kindred spirit, and a chance intimacy that blossoms into a wicked plan, and a dark, unsettling end. This film is about America’s 115 year old classic unsolved crime. The what's a given. The who and the how badger our brains for a solution. Well, for some anyway. It's less a who-dunnit than a how-dunnit. The scene of Lizzie Borden's trial for the murders of her father and stepmother was a spectacle unparalleled by any previous American murder case. Reporters from all over 'The United States' flocked to 'Fall River', Massachusetts, to witness the best show in the country. Local reporters fortunate enough to have found employment in Bristol County sent exclusives to papers around the world. Well known columnists arrived with their entourages and took up conspicuous seats in the courtroom. Suddenly a mill town which had been of interest only in their newspaper's business sections became universally known through extended front page exposure. Similarly, a woman whose typicality was her most distinctive feature became notorious, and her trial, a cause crlbre. For 'Fall River' and most of America, the murders became emblematic of the perils of foreign immigration, social disorder, or feminine transgression. In contrast, feminists used the trial to call for a truly representative jury system which would enable women like Lizzie Borden to be tried by a jury of their peer. Over one hundred years later, the enduring popular fascination with 'The Borden' mystery and it's central enigmatic character convened a second inquest. Rather than looking for answers in a detailed analysis of the social context, the film invents fictitious characters or invest historical actors with new characteristics and imagined psychologicalor even neurological states. Indeed, the implications of Lizzie Borden's guilt remain sufficiently disturbing decades after the crime that even authors who believe she committed the murders nonetheless feel compelled to provide medical explanations for her guilt and her ultimate irresponsibility. Regardless of whether they embrace or eschew such scientific, rational explanations, all commentators seeking the definitive solution share the dilemma of Borden's contemporaries: reconciling the public image of the exemplary Miss Lizzie with their vision of a murderess. Unfortunately, they also respond by uncritically replicating nineteenth-century class and gender norms in their own representations of Borden. Instead of placing Lizzie Borden and the murders of her father and stepmother in the context of their lives in 'Fall River', the film describes the case against a generalized backdrop of dislocated and dehistoricized social experience. Lizzie Borden is a dark spark of inspiration in our attempts to terrify one another. The film explores the backstory to understand her in both a historical and psychological context, to explore the framework of her potential motivation, and, if she did in fact commit these murders, to question how such dangerous impulses might begin to manifest in someone. She was a sociopath. She was a broken soul forced to do what was necessary. The film brings the audience very close to Lizzie and her life, to put them in the room with her so that their assessment of her circumstances would feel almost first person rather than removed and dispassionate. To that end the film places an emphasis on Lizzie’s everyday routine, and the stillness and claustrophobia of her home, allowing the narrative to unfold with measured restraint and an escalating sense of dread. As a result, there's an intentional awareness of the camera that, at times, lingers in uninterrupted takes allowing the viewer's eyes to wander within the frame, observing details that might otherwise go unnoticed; encouraging introspection and the uncomfortable feeling that you’re invading the character's privacy. It's in the subtle, menacing, manipulation of the ordinary that our truest fears are revealed, when the circumstances, though awful, are grounded in realism.

(London Film Festival, October 11th, 2018, Odeon Cinema, 20:45) "Mandy" Pacific Northwest. 1983 AD. Outsiders Red Miller (Nicolas Cage) and Mandy Bloom (Andrea Riseborough) lead a loving and peaceful existence. When their pine-scented haven is savagely destroyed by a cult led by the sadistic Jeremiah Sand (Linus Roache), Red is catapulted into a phantasmagoric journey filled with bloody vengeance and laced with fire. In a mountain-cabin idyll, lumberjack Red Miller lives in perfect harmony with his great love Mandy But the couple’s blissful utopia is cruelly shattered when a ragtag band of Satanic cultists invade their humble abode and claim Mandy for their own. And when this telekinetic bikie messiah Jeremiah tasks his dedicated followers with kidnapping Mandy, Red is spurred into frenzied action as he seeks retribution against 'Tthe Children Of The New Dawn'. Traumatised and distraught, Red is left with no option but to exact a bloody revenge. In his remarkable follow-up to cult hit 'Beyond The Black Rainbow', Panos Cosmatos gleefully demonstrates an audacious command of tone and atmosphere, conjuring an ethereal treat for the senses that begs to be seen on the big screen. Anyone who saw Cosmatos extraordinary debut, will know that describing his work is no mean feat. With "Mandy", he has once again crafted a film so singular, perverse and beguiling, it’s almost impossible to define. Awash in a sea of gloriously unhinged performances, carnage, lumberjack skills, and general sights and sounds, Cosmatos grinds up beloved genre tropes into a fine pulp and sculpts them into something altogether otherworldly and unforgettable. "Mandy" is a piece of naive art. A muscle memory evocation of revenge. The film deals with feelings of regret and guilt, with letting go of things we can never change. "Mandy" is about the feelings of rage and helplessness that followed. The film creates a very controlled and defined universe. If "Beyond The Black Rainbow" was an inhale, then "Mandy" is an exhale. Allows more of aesthetic fetishes and passions and personality to bloom more vividly within it's framework. Think of the most exquisitely nightmarish LSD trip imaginable, then multiply it by ten. That might give you some idea.

(Release Info London schedule; September 24th, 2018, Genesis Cinema, 19:30) "Skate Kitchen" Camille (Rachelle Vinberg) is an introverted teenage skateboarder from 'Long Island', meets and befriends an all-girl, New York City-based skateboarding crew called 'Skate Kitchen'. She falls in with the in-crowd, has a falling-out with her mother Lana (Elizabeth Rodriguez), and falls for mysterious skateboarder Jared (Jaden Smith), but a relationship with him proves to be trickier to navigate than a kickflip. It’s 2018 and never a more fitting time for a film that has been masterfully adapted from a popular Instagram account. Crystal Moselle’s "Skate Kitchen" is the groundbreaking story about a group of badass young women. Camille lives on 'Long Island' and spends most of her days skateboarding alone. When Camille injures herself skateboarding, her mum bans her from ever skating again. But skating is everything to Camille. But the pull is too strong and, after discovering 'The Skate Kitchen' on 'Instagram', Camille heads to New York City, board in hand. Seeing that the crew she follows on 'Instagram' are going to be at a 'Lower East Side Skate Park', she's there in a heartbeat, and not only proves her ability but quickly fits in with everyone. The diverse, staunchly independent group skate together and discuss life in bedroom hangouts, all the while carving out their own unique space at the park. There, the women quickly adopt her as their own and, before she knows it, she's living her dream skating and partying with her very own crew. But Camille comes to understand the complexities of the group dynamic when she befriends a boy from a rival group of skaters. When Jared attracts Camille’s attention, things get complicated in the group, and she finds herself in a male world, sleeping on a sofa while guys at the other end of the room flick between nature docos, skate videos and porn. "Skate Kitchen" is a real skateboarding collective, and the cast are real skateboarders. The girls are incredible actresses, and they've taken on these personas that are inspired by their own selves. That's a contrived storyline. The girls are all friends and they all hang out together. The boys are all friends. Everybody in the film is friends with each other. There's this kid Alex, he's like the honorary 'Skate Kitchen' boy. He's in the film as Charlie. The film hirings him as a cultural interpreter, because he literally sit and helps the skateboarders with their skater accent. They all have the craziest slang that nobody knows besides them. It's feels authentic to their world and the way they talk and stuff. All the locations are the actual places that they skateboard. It's a film about freedom and friendship, in which the real-life skaters play versions of themselves. This film is about a group of skateboarders in New York City that empowers people to skateboard. It's an authentic take on one young woman’s road to self-discovery as she learns the importance of female friendship and doing what you love. It's especially inspiring for women because it's pretty intimidating to get out in the park and actually learn. Because when you're learning you fall a lot, and it's inspiring to see these girls that just don't give a fuck and do their own thing. Also, they're not your traditional skateboarder chicks, not all of them are tomboys. They're very diverse, which is very cool. They're really just super open-minded. They're not mean girls at all, which to me is probably the coolest thing about them. The film hits a new stage with women where women are here to support each other rather than compete with each other. There's really not a competitive aspect of their world. There's is, because of the skateboarding, and every sport is to some extent. But, they're there to support each other.   There's darkness hanging around the edges of the film, but, while it does owe Larry Clark’s NYC classic a shoutout, this is definitely not Kids. The film’s best scenes, which resonate proudly with a sense of community and camaraderie, are when the crew are skating. The camera moves fluidly with the group as they take Manhattan, while Moselle’s documentary eye gives the film its grounded, observational realism. The film combines poetic, atmospheric filmmaking and hypnotic skating sequences. "Skate Kitchen" precisely captures the experience of women in male-dominated spaces and tells a story of a girl who learns the importance of camaraderie and self-discovery. Social media is something that's really big in their lives, and that's how they communicate with the skate world, and how they communicate with each other. It's a big part of bringing their world together. They're commenting on each other's clips and now that they've 'Skate Kitchen', which has a ton of followers. So they build their online presence, and they've a really huge community of people that follow them and everything they do. So, it's an important aspect of the film to include the world of 'Instagram'.

(London Film Festival, October 17th, 2018, ICA Cinema, 20:50) "Madeline’s Madeline" Madeline (Helena Howard) got the part! She’s going to play the lead in a theater piece! Except the lead wears sweatpants like Madeline’s. And has a cat like Madeline’s. And is holding a steaming hot iron next to her mother’s face, like Madeline is. Madeline has become an integral part of a prestigious physical theater troupe. When the workshop's ambitious director Evangeline (Molly Parker) pushes the teenager to weave her rich interior world and troubled history with her mother Regina (Miranda July) into their collective art, the lines between performance and reality begin to blur. The resulting battle between imagination and appropriation rips out of the rehearsal space and through all three women’s lives. Madeline is a biracial New Jersey teenager who wrestles with an often fraught relationship with her mother Regina. Madeline is deeply involved with an immersive, improvisatory theater production, whose director Evangeline becomes obsessed with her magnetic new star, and begins to adapt the production using personal revelations drawn from Madeline’s experiences. It’s obvious that Madeline is experiencing some sort of mental health issue, and dealing with things that are emotional and beyond anyone’s control but hers, and she doesn’t even know how to deal with it, and other people are trying to take control of her life. In any circumstance where it may seem like life, situations, and things are chaotic, it doesn’t help when people try to take control. You've to figure it out yourself. The film never labels a diagnosis for Madeline. As the audience, you get to put that in your own head. As life and art reflect and reframe each other, the film becomes a hallucinatory hall of mirrors; and a window into a consciousness in flux. Regina is a weird arty woman. She launched into a speech about fear, and how all of life is fear, and if you’re going to try to avoid it, why even do anything? She's a very erratic character. Early on, Regina developed a certain wariness around Madeline, which suited the testy, tug-of-war relationship between the film’s mother and daughter. Evangeline is a theater director who takes a close and complicated interest in Madeline. All these actors are in a troupe, in which the director is improvising a process to make a piece of work, and then becomes obsessed with this girl and write a piece about her. Evangeline is actually an incredibly loving, dedicated, compassionate woman who always makes ample and immediate time and space on set to discuss what's happening with cast and crew. There's a lot of processing people’s thoughts and feelings and politics. As a person who’s done loads of traditional film and television, to stop shooting for twenty minutes to make sure that everybody feels heard, it makes her kind of nervous. She’s whip smart. She can pull together a rap about what’s going on right in front of her in the moment, and it’s hilarious, brilliant, smart, cutting, witty. We're truly in a complicated life creating art situation. Set in contemporary New York City, and the volatile headspace of it's title character, the film explores the emotions, perceptions, and struggles of a brilliant and troubled young woman whose life becomes a performance. "Madeline’s Madeline" utilizes a welcome expressionistic approach that imbues her subjects with a vibrant sense of urgency. The film displays a rare sensitivity for capturing the messy struggles of discovering a sense of one's self that defies easy narrative categorization. Decker creates a poetic flow of images, as gauzy and impressionistic as dreams, set to choral susurrations and given to a sometimes jolting, always thrilling spontaneity. The scenario led to a dramatic exploration of the tensions faced by many families. The nature/nurture question around mental illness is really confusing. As a parent, are you contributing to your child’s mental illness, or are you mentally ill and creating an illness within the child? When a child is mentally ill, it can bring out some of the more destructive habits of the parent, so there’s something there. It's about responsibility in artmaking, about responsibility in this art we're making right now, were life-changing. They're honestly favorite parts of the process, and that’s why they became a climax of the film. If you’re going to make art this way, people are going to be mad. And that’s something you better get comfortable with. Obviously, not to say you want to exploit anyone or manipulate anyone, but you've to take the brutal life lessons that that offers. The feeling of playing with fire is tangible throughout the making. The film starts deep into that dangerous dark place of how to create without conforming to rigid, pre-packaged notions of where you’re headed. And we emerged from that abyss, creatively invigorated and alive. "Madeline's Madeline" is visionary, inspirational, and ingenious. In art you push the limit and in our society nowadays people are tiptoeing around actual art, actual creation. They're making things to make money. There’s no originality. They’re doing things to appeal to the mass media, the general public, and it’s crap most of the time. It’s remakes, or the same stuff that we saw last year, or two years ago with a different actor. But what about things that are pushing the boundaries? Because that’s what art is when you didn’t have a voice and that’s why theater was created to push boundaries, and show people what’s going on in the world.