Brocani conjures together all your favourite European cultural and historical myth figures in order to attack the centuries of ‘sublimation’ that have produced our cities and their inhabitants. The gang’s all here: Frankenstein’s monster gropes towards the awareness that his mind is a universe; Attila, naked on a white horse, liberates his people from their ignominy; the ultra-caustic Viva bemoans the frustrations of married life and drifts into the elegiac persona of the Bloody Countess Bathory; Louis Waldon is a hip American tourist searching for the (missing) Mona Lisa. The range is extraordinary, from stand-up Jewish comedy to a kind of flea-market expressionism. Brocani’s approach is contemplative rather than agitational, which confounds the impatient; Gavin Bryars’ lovely Terry Riley-esque score matches the ambience exactly.
Tag: UK
In a final act of defeat or defiance, a man builds a sinister contraption. This darkly humorous low-budget short film satirises the typical male pursuits of physical toil and precision craftsmanship. The Contraption is directed by James Dearden who would go on to write Fatal Attraction (1987) and stars The Rocky Horror Picture Show‘s Richard O’Brien.
A group of Devonport-based Royal Navy ratings, due to sail to America for a six-month NATO exercise, go out on the town on their last night in port, hitting Plymouth’s notorious Union Street district, with violent results.
A profile of American author Paul Auster and his personal history with New York City, accompanied by readings from his work, clips from “Smoke” and “Blue in the Face”, and a dual interview with the author and Lou Reed.
11-year-old Nick moves into a large old house with his sisters Jennie and Clare, left in the care of Helga the Swedish au pair while their parents are away in America. Nick is unhappy at his new school, where he is befriended by a boy named Sam and intimidated by scripture teacher Mr. Crabb, who is interested in the occult and demonology. Nick hears voices in the house and receives messages on his computer screen; he also suffers inexplicable blisters on his feet and grazes on his elbows and knees. When he dreams of burning and wakes up in a bed full of ashes, Nick tells a psychiatrist that he feels he is possessed by a demon.
An English professor interested in photography is given a pair of special sunglasses by an Austrian colleague. To his surprise and boyish delight, he discovers they’re X-ray specs, which allow him to see through people’s clothes! As he ventures across Europe, he is pursued by spies who’re after the glasses. He eventually manages to elude them, and settles down to a life of ease, ogling naked women on beaches.
Britain’s first musical shot in colour and widescreen (a process called Cosmoscope) is a cabaret-style featurette centred on a group of young people in Chelsea lodgings, watched over by a fatherly caretaker. Eight specially written songs are performed by stage stars of the day – most notably Georgia Brown, who later created the role of Nancy in Oliver!
A well-worn maxim suggests that it’s always best to create stories about ‘what you know’, and Yousaf Ali Khan’s accomplished short Talking with Angels goes a long way to show why this is advice best followed. Based on Khan’s own childhood and created with the intention of bucking the social ideals of what constitutes a ‘normal’ family, the film tells the story of the struggle faced by a poor family as they make their way through 1970s run-down Salford to a clinic for their schizophrenic mum’s regular injection of Largactil, a drug to dampen the voices and visions that plague her and those around her. Viewed as spacs and weirdos by the people they encounter on the journey, it’s 10- year-old Alan who takes charge and must battle with the shame imposed on him by the outside world for the family he loves and belongs to.