A disorienting and ultimately disarming movie about a brutal Cockney ex-con with Jude Law playing a part Bob Hoskins would have played 25 years ago. With slicked back, receding hair and mutton chops, Law acquits himself very convincingly as a profane, poetic thug. Just saw this film at the Toronto International Film Festival and it's very entertaining, edgy and often gripping, with a satisfyingly soft heart, given all the criminality portrayed. Props to Richard E. Grant as his wiser sidekick and the rest of a wholly believable cast, most of whom I don't recognize. Dom is a character akin to the crazed gangster played by Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast and you can see why Law would relish this part. And he attacks it with relish, bravado and just enough vulnerability to actually make this brute likable. You end up rooting for him due not only to story circumstances, but his basic humanity despite his despicable behaviour. I don't know if real Cockney gangsters would buy Law in the part, but I did. Worth seeing.
Reviews
3 Reviews
Runaway
(I) (2012)
Impressive first feature
3 October 2012
Warning: Spoilers
I saw Runaway, an impressive first feature from Bangla-American writer-director Amit Ashraf, which was the closing night film at Filmi, the South Asian Film Festival in Toronto last Sunday.
The film tells the story of Babu, a rickshaw driver in Dacca who kidnaps a rising politico, Akbar, in order to return him to the family he abandoned as a young father and husband. The relationship between Babu and Akbar careens from hunter and hunted to something more familiar and then caroms off into something even darker. By the end, I felt I'd been through the same emotional ringer Babu and Akbar had been through, drained but very satisfied at the depth of the story I'd been told.
Ashraf's script is in Bengali and I had to rely on subtitles to know what the characters are saying, but his use of the camera shows an astonishing grasp of visual poetry. Even when scenes are just of characters talking, the camera is always probing, searching for the right vantage point to witness this relationship and often that vantage point surprises. Nothing is conventional.
Performances from some rising Bangladeshi actors are top notch, though I felt Shahed Ali's Bapu had the edge over Monir Ahmed's Akbar who had to play both the younger and elder versions of the character. Also strong are Nawshaba Ahmed and Reetu Satter who play the women in Akbar's past. Animesh Aich's Raj is particularly nasty.
My quibbles are with the script which lacks enough story to keep it moving through the long middle section where Bapu takes Akbar on a kind of journey into the heart of Dacca, but Ashraf's writing pays off in the end with rigorous tragic consequences.
Working with cinematographer Kyle Heslop, Amit Ashraf has crafted a mature and majestic first feature that felt like Satiyajit Ray met Tarantino in Dacca with a Red camera and made a movie.
The film tells the story of Babu, a rickshaw driver in Dacca who kidnaps a rising politico, Akbar, in order to return him to the family he abandoned as a young father and husband. The relationship between Babu and Akbar careens from hunter and hunted to something more familiar and then caroms off into something even darker. By the end, I felt I'd been through the same emotional ringer Babu and Akbar had been through, drained but very satisfied at the depth of the story I'd been told.
Ashraf's script is in Bengali and I had to rely on subtitles to know what the characters are saying, but his use of the camera shows an astonishing grasp of visual poetry. Even when scenes are just of characters talking, the camera is always probing, searching for the right vantage point to witness this relationship and often that vantage point surprises. Nothing is conventional.
Performances from some rising Bangladeshi actors are top notch, though I felt Shahed Ali's Bapu had the edge over Monir Ahmed's Akbar who had to play both the younger and elder versions of the character. Also strong are Nawshaba Ahmed and Reetu Satter who play the women in Akbar's past. Animesh Aich's Raj is particularly nasty.
My quibbles are with the script which lacks enough story to keep it moving through the long middle section where Bapu takes Akbar on a kind of journey into the heart of Dacca, but Ashraf's writing pays off in the end with rigorous tragic consequences.
Working with cinematographer Kyle Heslop, Amit Ashraf has crafted a mature and majestic first feature that felt like Satiyajit Ray met Tarantino in Dacca with a Red camera and made a movie.
Monsieur Lazhar
(2011)
A little masterpiece
15 April 2012
This film won Canada's Genie for best film and deserved it. The story is simple and profound, contemporary and timeless at the same time. After the suicide of a grade school class teacher, a new teacher appears ready to take over the class. An Algerian immigrant, Monsieur Lazhar brings such a deep humanity to his job, that the traumatized kids are able to come to terms in some ways with what has happened. What they don't realize is how much their new teacher knows of their pain first hand.
Fellag's performance as the title character is note perfect and gigantic. The children are astonishing and the final scene, the final moment will crush even the most stoic viewer's resolve not to weep.
Fellag's performance as the title character is note perfect and gigantic. The children are astonishing and the final scene, the final moment will crush even the most stoic viewer's resolve not to weep.
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