After a school shooting, the parents of one of the victims and those of the student who killed him meet to try and make sense of the tragedy.
One table, four chairs, four grieving parents and an insurmountable weight of trauma to reckon with - the premise and presentation of Mass is simple enough, but this new drama from writer/director Fran Kranz makes the most of its talented cast to tackle a cavalcade of issues America is currently dealing with, but without offering any easy answers. On opposite sides of the table are Jay and Gail (Jason Isaacs and Martha Plimpton), mourning the loss of their child at the hands of a school shooter; and Richard and Linda (Reed Birney and Ann Dowd), the parents of the shooter. From the moment the four main characters enter the same room, Mass offers a complex array of emotional beats, both individually and by each pairing. Forced to reckon with their parenting choices and what they missed in their son's behaviour prior to the tragedy, Richard and Linda have to fend off accusations of negligent parenting whilst also hoping to use the meeting to find some way to move forward with their own lives.
The cast are all on superb form, with a reliably understated performance by Ann Dowd, in particular. What's most apparent though is that we've been starved of the talents of Martha Plimpton for too long. It's no criticism that she's spent the last two decades mostly working on television, particularly in the era of peak TV, but her roles have skewed towards comedy and procedurals, robbing us of the dramatic clout she offers here. Likewise, Reed Birney and Jason Isaacs as two very different father figures deliver fine performances, but the real gold is in the conflicting and often accusatory dichotomy between the two mothers. Plimpton's Gail states "Why do I want to know about your son? Because he killed mine", met with equally heartbreaking contrast by Dowd's Linda, "The world mourned ten. We mourned eleven".
With its chamber piece set-up (the action is mostly confined to their meeting room in the back of an Episcopalian church), Mass is unavoidably stagey, with four characters delivering monologues with occasional bursts of cross-table back and forth, to the point that it's surprising to learn this isn't based on stage work, but is instead an original script from Kranz. The stage-like tendencies are not a distraction per se, and the stripped back focus on the script and the performances even add weight to the subject matter.
Kranz - best known as an actor for his appearances in a number of Joss Whedon productions, most notably as slacker turned hero Marty in Drew Goddard's Cabin in the Woods - makes his directorial debut here, based on his own script, and it's a fantastic debut. Avoiding cliché and with vital commentary on the "thoughts and prayers" culture that has pervaded American culture in the wake of any tragedy, the film tackles gun control, the influence of violent video games, mental health and parental culpability, without portioning blame solely at anyone's feet. It's also capably directed without being showy, the camera only making slow, deliberate tracking moves around the table as the conversation flows back and forth.
A delicately handled, thought-provoking drama, full of remorse and regret, Mass makes a powerful statement on many core societal issues without relying on bombast. Kranz's smart script is expertly utilised by its talented cast to deliver a heartbreakingly vital drama for modern America.
Verdict
4/5
Mass screened as part of the 2021 London Film Festival. More information about the festival can be found here.
Weeks away from marrying his long time fiancee, Hollywood agent Jordan (Jim Cummings) receives a mysterious purple envelope, inviting him to a no strings attached sexual encounter that will fulfil all of his deepest desires. Jordan gives in to the temptation to explore a darker side of himself, but when he's contacted by blackmailers he starts to question everything and everyone around him, including the loyalty of his best friend and business parter PJ (co-director PJ McCabe) and fiancee Caroline (Virginia Newcomb).
Jim Cummings made a big impact back in 2018 with his first feature film, the tragi-comic and heartwarming Thunder Road, putting in the effort to make sure he was generating plenty of positive buzz on Film Twitter by turning on his natural charm at Q&A's, and touring his film around as many cinemas in the UK that would have him. Thankfully Cummings is no shyster and Thunder Road was one of the very best films of that year, and with his one man movie studio attitude he became an easy figure to root for in a manner that mirrored his role as a down on his luck cop in Thunder Road. Since then he's delved into genre fare with last year's The Wolf of Snow Hollow (where Cummings again played a cop), and now is back with The Beta Test; a much darker, scuzzier, sexier film, taking on the role of a Hollywood agent who lets the temptation to dive into the underbelly of Tinseltown get the better of him.
On the verge of landing a career defining deal with some executives from China, Jordan is suddenly coming to the realisation that he's part of a dying breed, and that his contribution to the filmmaking process is becoming increasingly redundant. Although he'd like to fool himself into thinking he's not like the old school of toxic wannabe moguls that came before him (Jordan claims things have changed "since Harvey"), it doesn't take much for him to allow his darker impulses to take over and then to become a lying, manipulative maniac when he becomes increasingly desperate and paranoid. When he thinks he hears his assistant Jaclyn (Jacqueline Doke who also appeared in Thunder Road) repeat something lewd he'd specified on the check box form that came in his purple envelope (top, sub, dom, face-sitting, etc), he cruelly admonishes her, much to her befuddlement.
As modern paranoia thrillers go, The Beta Test might not quite rival the mindfuck nature of David Fincher's The Game and Jordan mercifully stops short of going full Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, but the DNA of those films is definitely here, and there's tremendous rewatch value as Cummings's nervous comic energy shines through as Jordan can no longer hide the truth that he's something of a desperate fool. A proponent of the "fake it til you make it" school of thought, there's an exchange the film repeats with varying results, as Jordan tries to manipulate people into providing him with the information he needs by bluffing his way through, and then claiming he's an undercover cop when all as fails. It's played for all its comic absurdity by Cummings, who can do flustered incompetence like no-one else. Jordan is King of the bullshitters, and by far the most damaged and toxic man he's played so far (he barely wavers in deciding to cheat on his fiancee), but there's enough moments of comedy in his performance that you can't help but root for him, albeit with us asking ourselves why in a post-Harvey world.
Occupying the roles of lead actor, editor, co-screenwriter and co-director of The Beta Test (sharing some responsibilities with collaborator PJ McCabe, who also stars in as supporting role), it's quite possible that Cummings has encountered some men like Jordan in his career on the outskirts of Hollywood, although he's one of the new school of independently minded producers who's calling that entire method of filmmaking into question. With a wider scope than Thunder Road but still produced on a small budget with a skeleton crew, non name actors, and multi-tasking polymaths making the creative decisions, The Beta Test further expands on Cummings's message to Hollywood that filmmaking can be done differently, but also serves as a sly 'fuck you' to the people who engineered it to serve themselves.
It's not without fault, opening with a jarring scene of grisly violence that will have you thinking the pendulum has swung too far away from the heartwarming charm of Thunder Road in an effort to show scriptwriting range (not that that film didn't also include moments of unhinged mania - in fact, they're undoubtedly the most talked about scenes), but it's an outlier that isn't indicative of the rest of the film and therefore doesn't completely gel with it. The Beta Test is a colder, more emotionally detached film than his previous work, but when there's a camera on Cummings and he's letting his character's neuroses spill out, he's doing what he does best, and it's a lot of fun to watch.
One of the highlights among the documentaries at this year's London Film Festival was Mads Hedegaard's joyful Cannon Arm and the Arcade Quest, fresh from its debut at CPH:DOX and Hot Docs. Following in the footsteps of the almighty retro arcade doc King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, Cannon Arm and the Arcade Quest charts another plucky contender hoping to make gaming history by playing his favourite arcade game for 100 hours straight.
The gamer is question is the brilliantly named Kim "Kanonarm" Köbke - a nickname he's had since he first starting playing games in Danish diners in the 1980s - a mulleted Danish grandfather who loves listening to Iron Maiden and playing the classic arcade game Gyruss surrounded by his friends at Copenhagen's Bip Bip Bar. Already the holder of the impressive record of playing Gyruss (an outer space set shooter that sees you manouvre a space craft around the screen as you blast away patterns of stars) for 49 hours on one coin, his aim is to beat that record in honour of Thomas, a friend of the Bip Bip Bar who they lost to suicide.
The record attempt is not without its health risks, and although Kim is in decent shape for a man his age, people have died attempting similar endurance records, so his team of supporters have tailored a complicated score tracking system to make sure the game - much like the famed Donkey Kong kill screen - doesn't crap out on him and bring his record attempt to an abrupt halt. Starting off with 5 lives, the problem is he can technically accrue around 250 extra before the game errors, so he must keep track of how many he wins so he doesn't hit the top limit, but also, building up those extra lives so he can grab some much needed sleep for ten minutes or so is a crucial part of the plan. With his team monitoring the ever changing cache of lives, all Kim has to concentrate on is his scoring, keeping his eyes open, and hastily run to the garden whenever he needs to take a leak.
The comparisons to Seth Gordon's King of Kong are unavoidable, with its use of flash graphics and retro 8-bit sounds a major part of the fabric of both films, but director Mads Hedegaard doesn't shy away from acknowledging the existence of the former, even going as far as featuring a couple of the big names from that film and the world of arcade gaming. Both Walter Day from official video game scorekeepers Twin Galaxies, and the self-proclaimed "greatest arcade machine player" Billy Mitchell (who talks to Kim and his friends via telephone ahead of their record attempt, and before a cheating scandal sees him fall from grace in the eyes of his fans) appear briefly. But prior viewing of King of Kong isn't necessary to enjoy Cannon Arm and the Arcade Quest's own underdog story, with Hedegaard going some way to show why the quiet, unassuming Kim is such an unlikely but perfect subject for a documentary, and how his mind works when he's playing the game. If you do know your arcade gamers, needless to say that Kim is definitely more of a Steve Wiebe than a Billy Mitchell, and gains more of our support for it. As for Kim's team, they're a similarly unique group of gamers, more vocal and outgoing than Kim, doubling up as experts in the fields of music theory, physics and poetry in their every day lives.
The documentary spends its first hour detailing the prep and training needed for Kim's big record attempt, before switching into its final act as Kim settles down in front of the Gyruss machine and gives us the kind of one man against the odds battle not seen since the finale of Rocky. It could be easy to dismiss the film and his record attempt as frivolous or unimportant, but as we hear the game play on and Kim's accumulation of lives fall away as he attempts to rest his brain for a few precious minutes, it's one of the tensest moments in cinema I can recall. Without spoiling the outcome of his record attempt, what I will say is that if you've ever had your own life-engulfing obsession that seems completely alien to most people, you'll find so much to relate to in Kim and his friends. Touching on mental health and finding the support you need from your friends, ultimately all these guys want is for their efforts to have a lasting impact in the world they call their own.
A gloriously fun journey into this outsider lifestyle anchored by a loveable group of misfits you can't help but root for, Cannon Arm and The Arcade Quest is undoubtedly the best snapshot of this subculture since King of Kong and a truly captivating underdog story. A strong recommend.
As a head chef having the worst dinner service of his career, Stephen Graham stars in Philip Barantini's one shot wonder, Boiling Point.
Set over the course (or is that three courses?) of one disastrous dinner service and filmed in one, continuous unbroken take, Philip Barantini's tense thriller - expanded from his short film that also starred Graham as head chef Andy - is a masterclass in stacking problems on the shoulders of its main character and then waiting for him to buckle. As Andy's problems go from bad to worse, with family issues giving way to a bad EHO visit and then him finding out that celebrity chef and former mentor Alistair Skye (a delightfully weaselly Jason Flemyng) will be dining that night, it's like watching a pile of plates getting progressively higher, knowing that when it comes down it's going to be with an almighty crash.
The camera glides around the kitchen and between the tables in the restaurant, eavesdropping on the kitchen and front of house teams, quickly laying bare all the micro-aggressions and rivalries that exist between them - and that's before we get to the rude, demanding customers whose snobberies and prejudices are presented as an amuse-bouche for the waiting staff to enjoy with a smile, waiting to see what demands they'll serve as a main course. Barantini's script (co-written with James Cummings) contains so many delicious morsels of nightmare fuel that anyone who's ever worked with serving the general public will find all too familiar - even when it reaches its dramatic extremes. It's absolutely recognisable that a customer will be passive aggressively racist to a member of staff, and when they send their food back to the kitchen for the member of staff to be told by the kitchen that it's their fault; or for the front of house staff to promise more (in this case, a group of influencers who want to order steak and chips that aren't on the menu) than the kitchen is able to deliver. It's in these wince-inducing moments that the film is at its heart-pounding best.
It's near impossible to take your eyes of Stephen Graham as he gets increasingly worn down, but all the main cast (Ray Panthaki, Jason Flemyng, Hannah Walters, and especially Vinette Robinson as sous chef Carly) give fantastic performances in a film that packs an almost unbearable amount of tension into its 92 minutes runtime. Even when there's brief interludes that focus on the side characters (presumably to allow the main cast to take deep breaths before diving back into the story), we're never far from the chaos and heat of the kitchen.
Filmed at Jones & Sons, a real restaurant in Dalston, it's an impressive technical achievement that steers clear of the flashier camera work of other one shot films (Gasper Noe's Irreversible and Climax, for example) to deliver something more raw, frenzied and real world. And even if it's pretty clear early on where some of the plot threads are headed, that only adds to the feeling of impending doom. Like working a shift from hell where you hit the ground running and don't stop for two hours, knowing that you have no choice but to soldier on regardless, Boiling Point is tense, dramatic and all too relatable.
Returning to its home at Picturehouse Central after the pandemic rendered last year's festival a virtual only affair, Sundance London took place last weekend with some of the highlights from January's Park City iteration. Chief among them was the opening night film, Edgar Wright's debut documentary about Ron and Russell Mael - aka musical dynamos Sparks - the aptly named The Sparks Brothers.
Around in various forms since the late '60s, The Sparks Brothers follows the career of the Maels, going from album to album and one outrageous musical statement to the next, using interviews from a seemingly never-ending parade of celebrities and musicians who tell us the impact their music had on them. Chief among the contributors are the Maels themselves, offering an introduction and commentary to their long and storied career for those audience members drawn in by the lure of Edgar Wright. Truth be told, I count myself among that crowd, as outside of This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us, I wasn't hugely familiar with the Sparks' ouvre. But Edgar Wright is a director who's built up a loyal following who will trust in his artistic and musical taste, so The Sparks Brothers comes with a certain level of intrigue into why he chose this band to be the focus of his first non-fiction film.
It doesn't take long to see this is the perfect fit for director and subject, with a shared sense of madcap creativity between Wright and the Maels, and Edgar's distinctive laugh often audible off screen during Ron and Russell's pieces to camera showing that there's a close bond between them. It's fair to say that the Maels have the ability to be aloof and distant in a traditional interview setting, but there's a barrier that's been broken down that gives a real peppy energy to their interviews, with Wright matching and indulging in their flights of fancy (using props, gags and short snippets of animation) to keep the interview process alive.
Wright has pulled together a huge array of talking heads, and appropriately for an American band who always felt more English in their artistic sensibilities, they come from both sides of the pond. Sure, it's great to hear the opinions of Flea and Beck, but equally fitting to see Jonathan Ross and Dr Buckles himself, Adam Buxton, gush about their love for the band. Even ex-band members from decades past pop up to gush about the artistic triumph that is Sparks, just happy to have been involved in what has become the Mael Brothers' life's work. Topics such as their personal lives are largely ignored or side-stepped (when asked their sexual preference, Ron's answer is "horny"), except for The Go-Go's Jane Wiedlin admitting to a brief fling with Russell, although she now regrets not directing her affections towards the more mysterious Ron. To this end, The Sparks Brothers manages to contain vast amounts of fanboy details whilst maintaining a lot of the mystery around the brothers' lives. It's to its credit that it doesn't feel like it's missing anything crucial.
More than anything, Ron and Russell are great company, and it's hard through the many music videos and TV performances on shows like Top of the Pops not to get a small thrill every time when the exceedingly odd but utterly brilliant Ron, complete with his infamous moustache, finds the camera pointed at him and stares directly down the lens with a strained smirk/smile on his face. A man hugely aware of how his image was perceived by their fans and the world at large (as described in the film, school kids thought Marc Bolan had joined a band with Hitler), Ron may be a musical genius, but also one of the most singularly unique pop stars to have ever existed.
Structurally, the film feels like it reaches a crescendo that it just about manages to sustain for its last ten minutes, although at 2 hours 20 it is definitely overlong with some diversions that could have been resigned to deleted scenes on what I expect will already be a jam packed home entertainment release. But, when a filmmaker is deep diving into a subject he loves and having such a great time doing it, it's easy to get swept up in the mayhem of the Maels and forgive Edgar for over-indulging. A loving tribute to a band you can easily take to your heart, if you weren't a fan of Sparks before, you will have been converted long before The Sparks Brothers reaches its end.
Verdict
5/5
The Sparks Brothers was the opening night film for this year's Sundance London, and is now also on general release.
Part of the 'Northern Focus' strand at this year's Sheffield DocFest, I Get Knocked Down sees retired radical and former Chumbawamba frontman Dunstan Bruce reckon with his role in taking the group - temporarily - into the mainstream by signing with major record label EMI and achieving chart success, well away from their anarcho-punk roots that had served the band for the previous 15 years.
Sheffield DocFest has a history of offering great docs on forgotten or unheralded figures from the world of music (such as an infamous early screening of Searching for Sugarman where they surprised the audience by bringing the presumed dead Rodriguez out on stage), but if you'd have told me one of my favourite docs of the festival this year would be fronted by the former lead singer of Chumbawamba, I'd certainly have been surprised. Sure, I bought their anthemic single Tubthumping back in the late 90s (and still own a copy), but would a documentary about the rise and fall of the self-proclaimed anarchist pop stars really offer that much? As it turns out, yes, asI Get Knocked Downwas an energetic ride through life on the outskirts of stardom, with that brief moment before the millennium where this little band from Leeds exploded onto the world stage and could lay claim to have the biggest song in the world.
Co-directing with Sophie Robinson, Bruce serves as our guide through the history of the band, visiting his former bandmates (drummer Harry now works in a family friendly musical variety show, singer Alice Nutter - interviewed doing her ironing - is now a successful writer) and their most infamous exploits - like when guitarist Danbert Nobacon became front page news by dumping a bucket of ice over MP John Prescott's head at the 1998 Brit Awards, leading to his parents receiving the best piece of hate mail I've ever heard of, "I hope Burnley get relegated". All the while Bruce is shadowed by a mysterious baby-headed figure (taken from the cover of their breakout 8th album, Tubthumper), who stalks his every move to offer withering putdowns about the now 59 year old Bruce's ego and desire for artistic recognition. I Get Knocked Down is a documentary that isn't afraid to get a bit surreal.
Asking the question of whether the band's contribution to political causes absolves them of forever bearing the Scarlet Letter tag of 'sell outs', it's a film that will have many ageing activists asking if they've done enough, particularly after the year 2020 was when the power of protest was so evident. Bruce still clearly has activism close to his heart (he laments that "once upon a time I really thought I could change the world"), and this film is a loving tribute to all former radicals who may have had some of their rough edges sanded off over time, but are still able to stand with their principles intact. This year's hidden gem from DocFest's selection of music docs, I Get Knocked Down is madcap, witty and formally inventive - what else would you expect from the frontman of Chumbawamba?
Verdict
4/5
This review is expanded from my write-up for this year's festival, which can be found here.
Coming to an end last weekend after a triumphant return to Sheffield's cinemas - whilst also running a virtual version for those unable or hesitant to travel - this year's Sheffield International Documentary Festival managed to offer its usual mix of film and arts, via shorts, features, Q&A's and films that pushed the boundaries of what documentary filmmakers can achieve. With 78 features and 88 shorts in the film programme it's literally impossible to watch everything available, but here's my highlights from the line-up.
Separated into the Rebellions, Rhyme and Rhythm, Into the World & Ghosts and Apparitions strands that come together in the International & UK Competitions, DocFest re-stated its identity and unrivalled Sheffield-iness (an absolute must in the era of online festivals) by including a Northern Focus strand with new and old documentaries showing life outside of 'that there London'. Opening the festival with Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson's Summer of Soul - with satellite screenings across the country - and closing with DocFest royalty Mark Cousins' latest film, Story of Looking, there were a number of other feature length docs that caught my eye.
Top of my list of must watches was Nira Burstein's much hyped Charm Circle, by far one of the most talked about and well received at the festival, and a worthy winner of the Audience Award. Focussing on Burstein's family and their life on the quiet street in Olympia, Washington that gives the film its name, we meet her mother and father as they face their ongoing mental health issues, something that has caused their home and wellbeing to fall into disarray. In many respects a 21st century equivalent to Grey Gardens' Little & Big Edie, mother Raya and father Uri could endearingly be called eccentrics at first glance, but through Burstein's eye and the use of old home video we see the toll that Raya's illness and daughter Judy's subsequent need for care has taken on the family, most notably and vocally by the stubborn and volatile Uri, who works through his own problems by writing and performing a number of bluesy tracks that are peppered throughout the film. An old rocker who crashed out of the real estate rat race years ago, he's a man at odds with the modern world, unable to comprehend daughter Adina's decision to marry into a polyamorous relationship with two non-binary people, something he sees as going against Jewish law.
As a portrait of a family who've struggled to adapt to the many challenges they've faced, it's full of charming comedic moments (Uri enters the film complaining about the crappiness of the makeshift belt he's crudely fashioned out of a plastic bag to keep his shorts up) and heart-achingly sweet snapshots as Uri realises he's in the wrong and tries to make up for it. Burstein's camera follows the Maysles' direct cinema approach at first, but in what is obviously a raw, personal film to make, she steps from behind the camera (and in the home video footage) to interact, not just document, her siblings. It's here that the film transcends into something more special, removing that disassociation her camera gives her, and us, and pulls us into this incredibly moving, relatable picture of family life. A must see.
In No Straight Lines: The Rise of Queer Comics, we're given a guided history of gay representation in comics (both in the industry and on the page) by a group of the biggest names around. The most recognisable name for a lay person such as myself - or anyone who's dipped their toe into film Twitter in the last decade - is Alison Bechdel, accidental creator of the Bechdel Test grade for female representation in film based on a 1985 strip from her 'Dykes to Watch Out For' series. Thankfully that's not the focus of No Straight Lines (in fact, I don't think it even gets a mention), and instead we're given a funny, informative history of queer comics, from Mary Wings's "Come Out Comix" of the 1970s and Howard Cruse's Wendel series taking on the restrictive nature of the "Comics Code" (a McCarthy-ist set of regulations that forbade the depiction of homosexuality) that saw their work sold in head shops and under the counter.
If you're unfamiliar with any of the key titles or artists featured, this stands as a great introduction to their work. It's impossible to deny the skill in the artistry displayed here, not to mention the personal nature of the writing that spoke to the next generation of writers and artists, many of whom who appear in talking heads to tell of their own stories and influences. As Cruse states in the film, "people should be able to do art about their lives", and you'll leave No Straight Lines feeling enlightened and hopeful for the future of the medium of comics.
Sheffield DocFest has long been able to educate as well as entertain, one of the clearest examples being My Name is Pauli Murray, that I went into knowing nothing about the central subject but that immediately gave me that feeling of "why have I never seen a documentary about this person before?". So incredible is their story, if it wasn't for the clear, documented evidence that it happened, you'd assume it was a work of pure fiction. A black, queer, what would now most likely be thought of as non-binary person, who was a lawyer and teacher, continually at the forefront of historic social change and went on to become an episcopal priest in their final years, Pauli Murray lead an incredible life that until now hasn't been given the spotlight it warrants.
Directed by RBG filmmakers Julie Cohen and Betsy West (and including an interview with Ruth Bader Ginsberg herself among the many voices keen to tell of how important Murray's work was to them), My Name is Pauli Murray follows a similar biographical structure to their previous film, but with the added angle that Murray's life saw them arrive at various points in history, just before real change was about to be made. This is expressed to us via on screen text that hammers home the unjust world Murray lived in and how important the groundwork they laid was on shaping the civil rights and social justice advancements of the 20th century. With a stand-out subject that's incredibly timely and relevant to today's world, My Name is Pauli Murray is a statement of how much impact one person can have on the world, and should help see their work reach a whole new generation.
Now, if you'd have told me one of my favourite docs of the festival this year would be fronted by the former lead singer of Chumbawamba, I'd certainly have been surprised. Sure, I bought their anthemic single Tubthumping back in the late 90s (and still own a copy), but would a documentary about the rise and fall of the self-proclaimed anarchist pop stars really offer that much? As it turns out, yes, as I Get Knocked Down was a rip roaring ride through life on the outskirts of stardom, with that brief moment before the millennium where this little band from Leeds exploded onto the world stage and could lay claim to have the biggest song in the world.
More than just a bio-doc of the band, I Get Knocked Down follows frontman Dunstan Bruce (co-directing with Sophie Robinson) as he reckons with his role in taking the group - temporarily - into the mainstream by signing with major record label EMI and aiming for chart success, well away from their anarcho-punk roots that had served the band for the previous 15 years. Bruce does this by visiting his former bandmates (including Danbert Nobacon who infamously became front page news by dumping a bucket of ice over MP John Prescott's head at the 1998 Brit Awards, leading to his parents getting the amazing hate mail "I hope Burnley get relegated"), filmmaker Ken Loach and his former record exec in New York, all while being pelted by hurtful comments by his inner demon, depicted as a big toothed, bald-headed baby who stalks his every move. DocFest can always be relied upon to offer a great new music doc, and I Get Knocked Down is this year's hidden gem. Madcap, witty and formally inventive - what else would you expect from the frontman of Chumbawamba?
Elsewhere on the music doc front was Lydia Lunch - The War is Never Over, charting the career of the no wave singer and frontwoman for bands like Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, Shotgun Wedding and Retrovirus. If you're not familiar with Lunch this doc covers all the bases, from her riotous on stage performances to controversy baiting films made with Richard Kern that saw her strip nude and perform real sex acts as a backdrop to her powerful spoken word poetry. Labelled misogynistic at the time, it's hard to dispute that Lunch's self-expression wasn't informed by the hyper-sexualised persona she created. In her eyes, she was the exploiter.
Most of the film is - the still touring - Lydia showing she's not lost any of her edge, as she playfully flirts with men in her audience (and her band); but despite her impactful raspy vocals and extraordinary skill with a monologue, Beth B's film feels like it only captures a performance and never a true representation of the woman behind the act. It may be that Lunch has spent so long in character that the lines are forever blurred, but it's left her film feeling promotional rather than personal.
Top of the list of boundary pushing docs at this year's festival, Yael Bartana's Two Minutes to Midnight is a clash of performance and reality as several high ranking experts (and five actors), all women, gather in a recreation of Dr. Strangelove's War Room to debate the threat of nuclear war and the prospect of retaliation. Now dubbed the Peace Room, the female panel analyse the notion that having women in charge would lead to peace between nations, all while their President is conversing via telephone with the new Leader of the Free World - a Trump-esque lunatic called Arnold Twittler who's taken his finger of the 'send tweet' button long enough to hover it over the red button instead.
Smart and surprisingly funny, Two Minutes to Midnight is less a film than it is a documented piece of interactive performance art, complete with an audience that come into view as the low-angled camera circles around the room to show the vastness of the set. Although it's a fascinating thought experiment on the stance of superpowers, the prospect of nuclear disarmament and retaliation in the face of impending doom (and undoubtedly lacks some of the doomsday threat of when it was originally staged and filmed in 2017 and 2018), at 48 minutes long it just about reaches the limit the concept will allow, although I'd be intrigued to hear this panel debate other topics in a similar set up.
As well as music documentaries of forgotten bands ready to be re-discovered, DocFest can also offer up a stonking sports film from time to time, and this year's stand-out is unquestionably the Egyptian female weightlifters doc, Lift Like a Girl. Under the tutelage of former Olympic athlete Captain Ramadan - who trained his daughter Nahla to become a champion at the age of 15 - new teenage protege Asmaa and a group of young girls learn how to lift weights on a dirty, dusty empty yard in Alexandria, with the hustle and bustle of busy streets around them and local boys coming to taunt and throw rocks. As Ramadan turns the yard into his "Factory of Olympic Champions" with weights, gym equipment and plants in need of nurturing under the baking sun, Asmaa (affectionately nicknamed Zebiba/Raisin by Captain) is brutally chastised when she fails to make a lift, and serenaded when she succeeds. There's a real Burgess Meredith in Rocky vibe to Captain, a curmudgeonly old man who his young competitors yearn for approval from, not to mention the delightful, beaming, gummy smile he throws at them when they perform well at the various competitions.
Mayye Zayed's film has much to say about modern gender politics in sport and in Egypt (but also universally) with a traditionally masculine sport wholly occupied by these strong young women who are continually referred to by their coaches with male terms like "boy", told to "be a man" and to "grow a set of balls" when it's pretty clear that Zebiba and her friends are capable as they are. Filmed vérité style over the course of a few years and numerous championships, Zebiba's story is completely engrossing as she faces up to failure, tragedy and success. Ready to challenge your expectations, Lift Like a Girl has enough grit, determination and strength to be an inspiring - dare I say uplifting - sports movie.
Part of the Cinema Regained strand from this year's IFFR was Bill Morrison's The Village Detective - A Song Cycle. Picking up where he left off with Dawson City: Frozen Time, the story of Morrison's latest film begins with an email he received from the great, sadly departed composer Johan Johansson, who heard about a canister containing four reels of film that had been dredged up from the sea bed by a lobster trawler off the coast of his native Iceland. With hopes from Morrison and the National Film Archive of Iceland that it would be a lost silent classic, it turned out to be Derevenskij Detectiv (The Village Detective), a 1969 Soviet film that was considered neither lost or rare. Diving headfirst into the history of the film and its star Mikhail Zharov, Morrison uses clips from "lost" films like 1917's The Fall of the Romanoffs and from Zharov's many big screen credits to chart his career and the history of Soviet cinema.
Considered at the time to be a star on the same level as Humphrey Bogart or Clark Gable, here Zharov stands in for all the forgotten actors from cinema's first 50 years, whose credits are reduced to a potted history in film history textbooks. Donning wigs and beards to play everything from prisoners of a regime to noted dignitaries, it's fascinating to watch his career across the decades, from young supporting actor in 1915's Tsar Ivan the Terrible to his role as Aniskin in The Village Detective, that became a regular role towards the end of his life.
As the film plays out for us - including the sprockets that fill the frame - and the image distorts, it's almost impossible to decipher, but it's that unique power of cinema language that means we want to. Piecing the fragments together in our brain in order to understand the narrative (helped by David Lang's accordion score), what we're watching in its purest form is a collection of still images that lay underwater for decades, but that with the help of a bright bulb and some forward motion are able in all its damaged, corrupted glory to still tell us a story. It's a brilliant, breathtaking experience that will fill you with immense nostalgia for the format and a renewed hope that these films aren't lost to time. No-one's going to find a DCP drive at the bottom of the ocean in 50 years, and if they do it's not going to be of much use to anyone, but here, as we reach the end and watch the image deteriorate before our eyes, it's a beautiful thing to watch.
Wanting to celebrate their 50th year in style but hampered somewhat by that pesky pandemic, the organisers behind the Rotterdam International Film Festival (AKA IFFR) decided to split the festival into two portions this year, the first being in February and the second taking place at the start of June with some actual films in actual (socially distanced) cinemas.
With real world commitments taking hold of my life a bit more than the February edition, I didn't get to see as many of the June edition's films as I would have liked, but still managed to delve into what these new strands had to offer. Separated into Harbour, Bright Future, Short & Mid-length and Cinema Regained, it was in the last, most experimental, film history led strand where I found the most to enjoy.
Beginning with Nicolas Zuckerfeld's There Are Not 36 Ways of Showing a Man Getting on a Horse, which is pretty much what you'd expect it to be and then some, the film starts with an extended montage of men getting on horses, all clipped from classic Westerns of Hollywood's golden age and complete with cowboys, the cavalry, "Indians" and assorted lawlessness. For any fan of cinema, it's quite thrilling to see this selection of old Hollywood horse operas, and as the doc's scope expands out to a wider view of Hollywood storytelling, pairing up moments from years apart (covering the Raoul Walsh films 1915's Regeneration, 1964's A Distant Trumpet and many in-between) to show how much reliance there is on a set formula. The film takes a turn half way in, as Zuckerfeld's narration moves the film into a more academic realm as he discusses Edgardo Cozarinsky's book, Cinematografos, and delves into the Raoul Walsh quote that serves as the film's title. There Are Not 36 Ways of Showing a Man Getting on a Horse works best as an art film, the very wordy canter of the second chapter a dramatic shift from the visual gallop of the first, and is probably for film history buffs only.
My second film of this extended festival came from the Harbour segment, the big draw being a debut acting role for Zack Mulligan, AKA one of the subject of Bing Liu's excellent Oscar-nominated skateboarding documentary, Minding the Gap. With opening shots of American cornfields setting the scene, Death on the Streets introduces us to Mulligan as Kurt, a down on his luck almost 30-something with a wife, two kids and a lot of money problems. Doing his best to keep his head above water with day work in the local farming industry, he's a quiet man with enough dignity or foolhardiness to turn down the help offered by local well-wishers, including his father in law who creates fake odd jobs around his house in order to give Kurt a hand-out.
In no small part due to the heavy emotional baggage that comes with Mulligan after Minding the Gap, he acquits himself well in a role that has no flashy moments, only one man's quiet desperation as he looks upon the rock face of the gig economy. The film is awkwardly weighted, spending two thirds of its runtime setting up its last act that, although it limits the appearance of the impressive Katie Folger as Kurt's wife, actually gets close to delivering the message it's aiming for, with despair mixed with hope coming in the form of homelessness. Emotionally pitched somewhere close to Kogonada's Columbus and touching on some similar themes to Chloe Zhao's Nomadland, it's let down by a lack of narrative drive and some truly amateurish acting from the supporting players. A sharper script and a more ruthless editor might have given Mulligan a better film for his debut, but he's a likeable screen presence you want to root for.
With the promise that you'll never watch Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street in the same way again, The Philosophy of Horror: A Symphony of Film Theory uses old reels of the first two films to create something new, different and strangely compelling to watch. Manipulated, dyed, blacked out with pen and looking generally like it's been stored in a high school boiler room, this isn't a print that's in pristine condition, and is merely used as a vehicle for a deeper dive into film theory, featuring clipped excerpts from Noel Carroll's Philosophy of Horror book. Although a similar effect could have been achieved by using another classic horror film, like, Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead, for example, the whole reason why Freddy Krueger's first outing works in this context is the dreamlike trance it draws you into. Featuring no music or dialogue from the actual film and soundtracked by Ádám Márton Horváth's grungey, guitar feedback led soundscape, it's quite easy to be drawn into this weird world of freeze frames, repeated images and distorted, strobing faces.
With mouths agape like they're silently screaming out for help, the film occasionally moves on for a few frames, allowing Heather Langenkamp's fear to project towards us as the boogeyman looms into view. With its rhythmic, pulsating score and vivid colours, whatever has been done to this strip of celluloid has turned it into something almost Lovecraftian in the process, whilst also mimicking and replicating the mania of a dream state, albeit an occasionally nightmarish one. It's self-indulgent, using up portions of its runtime for an opening overture and an intermission, and although it might not deliver any coherent analysis on Wes Craven's horror masterpiece (and with a surprising lack of Krueger on screen), it's a bold, impressively realised visual experiment.
Last up from the Cinema Regained strand was Bill Morrison's The Village Detective - A Song Cycle. Given the treatment of the source material in the last film I'd seen, I went into Bill Morrison's film to find startling similarities, although in this case the distorted film was truly breathtaking to see come to life. Picking up where he left off with Dawson City: Frozen Time, the story of Morrison's latest film begins with an email he received from the great, sadly departed composer Johan Johansson, who heard about a canister containing four reels of film that had been dredged up from the sea bed by a lobster trawler off the coast of his native Iceland. With hopes from Morrison and the National Film Archive of Iceland that it would be a lost silent classic, it turned out to be Derevenskij Detectiv (The Village Detective), a 1969 Soviet film that was considered neither lost or rare. Diving headfirst into the history of the film and its star Mikhail Zharov, Morrison uses clips from "lost" films like 1917's The Fall of the Romanoffs and from Zharov's many big screen credits to chart his career and the history of Soviet cinema.
Considered at the time to be a star on the same level as Humphrey Bogart or Clark Gable, here Zharov stands in for all the forgotten actors from cinema's first 50 years, whose credits are reduced to a potted history in film history textbooks. Donning wigs and beards to play everything from prisoners of a regime to noted dignitaries, it's fascinating to watch his career across the decades, from young supporting actor in 1915's Tsar Ivan the Terrible to his role as Aniskin in The Village Detective, that became a regular role towards the end of his life.
As the film plays out for us - including the sprockets that fill the frame - it's almost impossible to decipher, but it's that unique power of cinema language that means we want to. Piecing the fragments together in our brain in order to understand the narrative (helped by David Lang's accordion score), what we're watching in its purest form is a collection of still images that lay underwater for decades, but that with the help of a bright bulb and some forward motion are able in all its damaged, corrupted glory to still tell us a story. It's a brilliant, breathtaking experience that will fill you with immense nostalgia for the format and a renewed hope that these films aren't lost to time. No-one's going to find a DCP drive at the bottom of the ocean in 50 years, and if they do it's not going to be of much use to anyone, but here, as we watch reach the end and watch the image deteriorate before our eyes, it's a beautiful thing to watch.
And with that, sadly, my time at IFFR draws to a close. This was my first year taking part in the festival, and although I was only able to visit it in a virtual space, I look forward to hopefully joining them in person at some point in the near future. Overall, both outings had a great selection of new, exciting pieces of cinema, including many that I look forward to seeing find an appreciative audience that, with any luck, I'll be a part of.
Released after the tragic events of 9/11, composer William Basinski's The Disintegration Loops albums came to speak for those lost for words when mourning the lives of so many in New York City. Now, nearly 20 years later, David Wexler's documentary uses interviews with Basinski and a selection of music aficionados to assess the impact of the ambient albums and reframe them against the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Created using a 12 inch piece of audio tape passing through a recording device on a short loop (roughly two seconds), Basinski noticed that as the quality of the tape quickly degraded, aspects of the audio changed as "drop-outs" occurred, creating a truly unique piece of sound that would in time destroy itself when played. Working on them during 2001, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Basinski - who was due to go for a job interview at the World Trade Center and watched the towers fall from the roof of his building - merged his new music with footage of the giant smoke cloud drifting over the New York skyline, creating a poignant elegy to the city and becoming an instant hit.
This film starts with this music, now placed over black and white footage of deserted New York streets and Central Park, signs of closure and social distancing immediately making us aware this was filmed in recent times. Such is the unescapable harmonious beauty of Basinski's most famous work that there's a compelling argument that, had director David Wexler created an artistic extension to the music of Disintegration Loop 1.1 and allowed all 63 minutes to play out over images of a pandemic hit NYC, the parallels between the two most troubling times the city has had to face this millennium could have made for a powerful re-contextualising of the music, whilst also paying respects to those lost in 2001.
But, this isn't that kind of documentary. Instead Wexler's 45 minute film provides us with a potted history of Basinski and his career, from his beginnings in high school bands to moving to NYC in the 80s, playing at CBGB's and launching his Arcadia club in a trendy NY loft space (where the cover photo for Jeff Buckley's Grace album was shot). The frank and open Basinski appears via numerous Zoom-style calls to Wexler to talk about his early life, struggles as a musician, creative process and experience recording and releasing his best known work around 9/11. Framed within the pandemic, there's a worry that although these Zoom interviews help establish the context for the time this film was made - and are a necessary evil to have any sort of contact with interviewees - they lack a certain visual flare or cinematic language that help avoid giving the film an inbuilt expiry date. It's a quibble over something I do realise Wexler was cornered into when this film went into production mid-pandemic, but it's to the detriment of the lasting impact it may have that it's an often uninspiring watch, particularly when the early shots of a deserted New York work so well against Basinski's music.
With the 20th anniversary of 9/11 later in the year, it's an appropriate time to look back on The Disintegration Loops, and although the film purports to use the music as a soundtrack for a city in lockdown, it doesn't manage to convincingly do this barring some bookended sequences, instead functioning more as a promotional film for William Basinski. Whilst rightly appreciating the truly beautiful pieces of ambient music that has brought Basinski fame and recognition in the years since, although the pandemic production may have hamstrung a more visually memorable film, the impact of his music certainly won't just fade away.
Now in full swing and launching a selection of cinema screenings today is this year's Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, better and more succinctly known as CPH:DOX. Among this year's selection is A Song Called Hate, following the Icelandic rockers Hatari as they enter Eurovision.
Known for their outlandish performances that blend performance art, bondage gear, leather and growled lyrics over pulsating electronic rhythms, Hatari aren't exactly the first band you'd have in mind for the traditionally 'bubblegum pop', family friendly institution that is the Eurovision Song Contest. Chosen as their country's entry in 2019 with their song Hatrið mun sigra (AKA Hate Will Prevail), although the title is as provocative as the fascistic imagery the band uses, they're nice boys really and want to warn about the rise of nationalism across Europe, including their native Iceland. With the expectation that the Enfant terrible band will use the global platform of potentially 200 million Eurovision viewers to deliver a political message that others daren't, the staging of that year's contest in Tel Aviv provokes the opportunity for them to comment (or as they put it "uphold a critical discussion") on Israeli-Palestinian relations in some way.
A collective that expands to over 10 members in the run up to the contest, in reality the band is largely the work of two cousins, Klemens Hannigan and Matti Haraldsson, who have performed together since childhood and who launched the band along with drummer Einar Steffanson in 2015. The frontmen of the band and the focus of this film, Icelandic director Anna Hildur's documentary follows them in the weeks before the concert in Tel Aviv as they embark on a promotional tour of Europe and meet and collaborate with Palestinian musician Bashar for a tour of Israeli-Palestinian borders and camps to see the problems for themselves.
It might sound odd for a film ostensibly about Eurovision - best known for its bright, hopeful outlook on the world - to wade in on the Israel/Palestine conflict, and yes, it is a bizarre amalgam of tones that you have to allow yourself to be taken in by, but to be frank, the Eurovision stage has seen stranger things happen in its time. Matti and Klemens remaining stoic and monosyllabic in interviews with press about what their plans are, but the documentary does capture a slight slipping of the mask as the group collectively ponders what their protest should be, and what potentially career ending repercussions they might face from the power of the European broadcasters. It's clear that they've backed themselves into a corner of staging a protest but with no actual idea of how to pull it off in a meaningful way that will be seen, with a Eurovision imposed 15 second time delay in place to make sure none of the acts attempt to slip anything too outrageous in during their 'live' performances.
In fairness to Hatari, despite the infamy they are courting and the unavoidable feeling that their protest is simply another part of their act, their desire to use their platform to deliver a meaningful message to create social change seems genuine enough, if somewhat naive. For all their pomp and composure, Hildur's camera captures some real moments of truth from the band, such as the Matti's anxiety that leads to tears before their performance, the sharp intake of breath after the loosening of a girdle worn by one member to walk the red carpet, and their collective panic once their small, but effective (and crucially, televised) protest finally takes place during the Eurovision broadcast.
Like 2006's Dixie Chicks documentary Shut Up & Sing, that saw the band deal with the fallout from their comments on George W. Bush's Iraq War with unsteady support from some and virulent distain from others, A Song Called Hate never fully explores all the issues surrounding the Israel/Palestine divide, nor does it have the time to do so. Instead it works best as a document on how artists can use their platform and visibility to engage in political activism in a meaningful way and provoke wider discussion on the topic. As to whether they should, that remains open to debate. Whether Eurovision wanted to or not, they gave Hatari a stage and the opportunity to use their performance to send a message to the world, and isn't that really what Eurovision should be about, anyway? A lively, engaging mix of performance and politics, A Song Called Hate is one to enjoy.
Telling the story of Connie Norman, the HIV-positive, transgender former sex-worker who became a leading voice in ACT UP's political activism to fight the AIDS epidemic in the late 80s, director Dante Alencastre's AIDS Diva hopes to acknowledge the contribution this forgotten figurehead had to the movement and establish her legacy for a new generation.
Connie lead quite the remarkable life, having once worked as a drag queen in San Francisco before turning tricks and doing time in prison, then transitioning and becoming one of the most visible (and vocal) transgender people of the era through her work with the direct action group ACT UP/LA upon the outbreak of AIDS. Leading marches and making powerful statements from the podium about the "genocidal neglect of Reagan and Bush", she gained a level of notoriety that lead to appearances on radio and TV as a reliably opinionated firebrand. As a transgender woman, this step into the forefront of political activism was something Connie was hesitant to do at first, having faced negativity towards her trans status from some areas of the gay community and within AIDS activism, but following her own diagnosis of HIV-positive in 1987 she felt she needed to be a part of the fight.
A natural leader who people listened to, the way Connie is portrayed in the wealth of archive video footage that's in AIDS Diva - of week long vigils outside hospitals demanding more beds for patients and marching on the streets - could be used as a guide on how to become an activist. At a time where we have hoards of people campaigning across the world over social, racial and healthcare issues, AIDS Diva is incredibly timely in its portrayal of how to make change through the power of making your collective voice heard. Although Norman passed away many years ago, there's plenty of her contemporaries eager to offer anecdotes of the ferocious nature of Connie, and help tell her story in the early years of the HIV/AIDS crisis, along with more personal expressions from her "Tribal Writes" newspaper column.
Within the footage of Connie is her appearances on right-wing "moral panic" lead talk shows like Wally George, knowing her presence would push a few buttons in the audience but also hopefully nudge a few people in the right direction. There's a great term Connie uses during an interview, talking about "GOB-ism", referring to the small minded "Good Ol' Boys" she had to deal with growing up as a queer kid in Texas, who she now saw as the same people running the country and neglecting some of its citizens. Although some things might have changed recently in the leadership of America, it's hard not to wonder how Connie would have reacted to the upheaval of the Trump era and the health crisis brought on by the pandemic.
What will also resonate for a modern audience is Connie's evolving definition of gender, describing it in 1993 as a "fluid spectrum". This film serves as a snapshot of a less sympathetic time for the trans community (talking heads using terms like nelly and sissy), when transgender women were forced to come off medication and either present as their assigned at birth gender in order to receive treatment for AIDS or hide themselves from the public. That's why having Connie's voice was such an important one to include in the fight against AIDS, and this film should allow a new generation to appreciate her contribution to the cause.
With an acknowledgement that they weren't just fighting for themselves but for future generations, AIDS Diva: The Legend of Connie Norman is a document of a time of fear and change, and a compelling, powerful account of political activism at work.
Verdict
4/5
AIDS DIVA: The Legend of Connie Norman is screening as part of the BFI Flare LGBTIQ+ Film Festival. The full line-up can be found on the BFI Player here.
Through interviews with his son and members of today's trans community, this new documentary tells the remarkable story of Billy Tipton, a successful jazz musician in the 1930s who released a number of albums, raised a family and was then revealed to the world to be a trans man after his death.
The story of Billy Tipton is so incredible that he has become a trans icon, namely for his ability to forge a successful music career that spanned decades without anyone knowing of his trans status until his death in 1989. In a tale of revelation that has now become the stuff of legend - and that also served as tabloid fodder in the years after - when Billy died at the age of 74 in his adopted son Billy Jr's arms, it was the attending EMT who alerted the family to the truth whilst trying to resuscitate him. With no footage and only a handful of photos available of Billy's early days on the jazz club circuit, in order to fill in moments from his life directors Aisling Chin-Yee and Chase Joynt and co-writer Amos Mac incorporate a series of auditions from trans actors to play the part of Billy Tipton for the film.
Working from what information is available and with the involvement of Billy Jr, No Ordinary Man is a respectful telling of Billy Snr's story that acknowledges that due to the great efforts he went to to keep his "secret", the story of his gender identity is one that he most likely never wanted revealing. However, as is shown via the shock tabloid headlines, clips from 90s talk shows (with hard to watch, horrifically outdated opinions and weaponised misgendering on them) and excerpts from the biography sanctioned by ex-wife Kitty that couldn't believe she was unaware of the truth and that hung on the idea Billy was only posing as a man to further his music career, once the story was out, there was no way of putting the genie back in the bottle. It's not the intention of No Ordinary Man to mimic this salacious, shock factor style of storytelling, but instead to use Billy's story as a jumping off point to tell the wider story of transgender/trans-masculine people, with numerous well-educated talking heads from members of the trans community that confront the general public's fascination with trans stories and the notion that trans-people are "liars", trying to trick them.
Analysing the misguided presumption that trans-people are putting on a performance, the inclusion of the auditions is fascinating, allowing a group of male trans actors (there is no limitations put on age or race) to embody Billy whilst also dissecting the scenes from their own point of view. It's these different voices that bring Billy to life on screen, linked by their own experiences of life as trans men to offer a possible glimpse of why Billy chose to never reveal that side of their life to those closest to him. With no historical record, it's a bold inclusion to use dramatic scenes based on interactions Billy might have had, but in the context of the film it works in giving Billy more of a dialogue in his own story, albeit scripted.
In the assembled interviews there's a huge amount of important contributions from voices such as actor Marquise Vilson (who also appeared in last year's Flare favourite, Disclosure), Stephan Pennington, Susan Stryker and Zackary Drucker, but in order to tell Billy's story the film knows that its key interviewee is Billy Jr, who is visited in his home to tell recollections of his father and how his life has been impacted since. Notably, Billy's two other adopted sons do not appear, going as far as having their faces blurred out of old photographs, having reacted negatively to the notoriety their father inadvertently brought them in his death. But Billy Jr is an engaging presence, largely unaware of how important his father is to the trans community.
The details of Billy Tipton's life shouldn't need to be told but also shouldn't be erased, and the educational and entertaining No Ordinary Man provides its audience with a way to engage with his legend and be respectful of the privacy of a group of often maligned and misjudged people. Despite the unavoidable shock value of his death, Chin-Yee and Joynt's film goes some way to tell why Billy's story is so important to the trans community, and make sure his legacy is a positive one.
Verdict
4/5
No Ordinary Man is screening as part of the BFI Flare LGBTIQ+ Film Festival. The full line-up can be found on the BFI Player here.
