WatchSeeLookView At The LFF 2020 - Closing Thoughts

The festival this year was, of course, a vast departure from what it would have been in the absence of a global pandemic so first things first -  the BFI did an incredible job of pulling together the nearest equivalent to the festival we all know and love in order to give us something to get us through stay-at-home life. It genuinely was as close as they could get to creating the same sort of buzz that the real in-person event has and hats off to them for managing to get an online equivalent up and running. The use of specific start times worked well, giving you that agony of choice over which films to pick that is part and parcel of the festival experience. Here are few specific thoughts…

Documentary and Drama

For me, the strands that I tend to gravitate towards the most are the Comedy and Cult strands (yes, I know, no surprises there). This year, there was a limited number of films on offer in those areas so I was pushed more into choices that I might not have made otherwise. This prompted me towards more from the drama and documentary strands that I might normally have picked and made me pick a few films that I might not have otherwise watched (which would have been a shame given that I thoroughly enjoyed them) - The Reason I Jump, The Painter And The Thief and New Order being among those. The downside to this was that, after a long string of hard hitting dramas and documentaries, I was beginning to feel pretty drained and wrung out by the end of the fest.

Home Cinema

There were definite plusses and minuses to having the films at your fingertips instead of having to schlep across London. I could fit in some back to back screenings that wouldn't have been possible in the outside world version and, with some films having a three day window to start watching them rather than having to watch within two hours of the screening start time, I could work out a schedule that fitted in around work much more easily. The missing thing though is that shared communal experience of being amongst fellow film lovers who are really into it and also (a big draw for me) the interviews and Q&As with the filmmakers and casts. There were online Q&As but, to be honest after watching a couple, these didn't really work for me (just personal taste).

Quality

One thing that hadn’t altered is the quality of the films on offer. Out of the 27 films that I watched, there were only around 3 to 4 that I didn't really enjoy. I enjoyed the rest to varying degrees but there was some level of enjoyment there. It’s a testament to the BFI programmers that were still able to pull together a strong programme of films in a year when maybe a sixth of the number of films were on offer.

Would I do it virtually again? My preference naturally would be to be able to go and see these in a real live cinema, enjoyable as the home-based version was. If it comes to it, though, I’ll happily take the online version again. After all, the show must go on.

WatchSeeLookView At The LFF 2020 - After Love / Zanka Contact

Alright, this strand has gone on far, far longer than it should have. I will freely admit that I have been slack of late when it comes to this here blog. Let’s rattle through the last couple and bring this year’s reviews to a close.

After Love
Dir. Aleem Khan / Dur. 89 mins
Strand:- Love

In A Nutshell:- Grieving widow Mary discovers a secret about her late husband and heads across the Channel to find out the truth.

The Good:- Joanna Scanlan as Mary is an absolute powerhouse. She was great way back in the day in The Thick of It as long-suffering civil Terri Coverley but this really gives her a chance to show her range. To be perfectly honest, the whole film hangs off her performance which is great as large chunks are given over to her reactions to the events around her, often without much in the way of dialogue. It’s a tribute to her ability that she makes Mary so compelling to watch.

The Bad:- Unfortunately for me, the storyline itself felt a little familiar. It unfolded with a sort of inevitability and wrapped up in a way that felt a little too neat unfortunately.

The Verdict:- Joanna Scanlan is worth watching is anything and the film is completely driven by her performance (which is great as you would expect). Unfortunately, a predictable storyline leaves this feeling somewhat underwhelming as a film overall, which is a real shame as Scanlan’s turn in this does deserve to be seen.

Zanka Contact
Dir. Ismaël El Iraki / Dur. 120 mins
Strand:- Create

In A Nutshell:- A collision leads to a lively love story between a former rock star turned junkie and a prostitute.

The Good:- It’s a lively and fun tale, with a feel at times somewhere between a Tarantino film and a spaghetti western. The two main leads do a good job of portraying characters that are tough but damaged, in particular Khansa Batma as Rajae.

The Bad:- There's a sequence at the start of the film with some English characters played by seemingly English actors but their accents and mannerisms just feel a bit off. It was almost enough to put me off but I'm glad it didn't.

The Verdict:- This was one of those films that I booked on a whim with no real expectations and it turned out to be a really enjoyable way to close out the festival. Lively and fun at times but with a strong emotional core, it was definitely one of the ones I enjoyed the more.

How I Spent My Lockdown 2 (Electric Avenue)

Before we kick off, just a quick caveat. This is purely a personal view of how I spent another month of being locked inside. It isn’t a “how to”, it isn’t a guide or recommendation. All it is is me saying what I did to get through November and how it worked for me.

Being honest, I didn't really go out that much between lockdowns anyway so it didn’t seem like a huge adjustment to me this time round. The virus was still out there and still infecting people in the in between bit and my preference was to err on the side of caution. I did, however, decide that I would try to fill November as full as possible of stuff so that I didn't notice the time going past. So here’s how I spent the month:-

• The last two sessions of my six week improv course (which I signed up for off the back of mucking around and taking part in online comedy shows)
• Virtually going to 22 talks as part of NextUp & Chortle’s Online Comedy Book Festival
• Also virtually going to about 10-12 other online comedy shows
• Doing a one day comedy masterclass with Spencer Jones 
• Still “going” to work (they pay me for that one, might as well)
• Created and ran two Zoom quiz evenings for mates
• Oh yeah, and writing a 51,500 word novel in 30 days as part of National Novel Writing Month (7th attempt, 2nd time "winning")

It worked. November absolutely flew past. I genuinely didn’t feel like it was that weird interminable neither quick nor slow spread of time that the first lockdown was. So, for me, the plan of making November as chock full of things as possible was an absolutely solid one and paid off. I imagine you may have questions about some of the above. Let me anticipate a few of them…

Improv classes and a comedy masterclass. You looking to become a comedian? (I’m imagining a note of incredulity in the voice for this one)

The improv is fun and is about playing, mucking around and having fun with a group of like-minded people. The comedy masterclass was because I’m fascinated by the process of how comedians craft their acts. Could it lead to something more? Maybe but nothing definite planned at the moment (beyond Level 2 of improv in January).

Book, eh? When can we read it?

In its current state, never. It’s a scrappy first draft of an idea I wasn’t overly invested in. The advice for NaNoWriMo is to always start a new idea and that was all I had to hand at the start of November. I’ll leave it for a bit as it’s still fresh in my mind and see what happens when I type it up. Maybe I’ll do something with it, maybe it’ll become parts for something else, maybe it’ll just be an exercise in writing for a month. Any of those things are still helpful. The important thing is that I was set a challenge to write something in 30 days running to at least 50,000 words with a beginning, middle and end and I did it.

Got your December planned out?

More online comedy. Increased levels of sitting around watching telly and films. Whatever festiveness can be had in the weirdness that has been 2020...