By Ashley Clark
Look into my eyes, not around my eyes, into my eyes: come to the Ritzy cinema for another week of great film, including the return of a national treasure, a deeply moving doc, and a sprightly Euro-comedy.
For his first significant trick since the triumphant Olympic opening ceremony, British national treasure Danny Boyle returns with snazzy hypnotherapy-themed thriller Trance. Set in the rarefied world of high art (well, art theft) it stars the likeable James McAvoy, the statuesque (in a good way) Rosario Dawson, and the always-brilliant Vincent Cassel. Twisty and violent, Trance is a return to Shallow Grave-style territory for Boyle that’s divided critics, and will likely do the same to audiences; what can’t be denied is its conviction and energy.
Also new this week – though infinitely more grounded in reality – is Penny Woolcock’s tremendous documentary One Mile Away. A follow-up to the director’s hip-hop musical One Day, this film was initiated by gang member Shabba, who met after that film wrapped in 2010. He saw her as a neutral and as someone who had built trust on both sides. Woolcock subsequently introduced Shabba to Dylan Duffus – the lead actor in 1 Day (and affiliated to an opposing gang). One Mile Away follows their painstaking, troubled journey over two years to recruit more supporters from both sides. Moving, surprising, and as much of a social action project as it is a film, it’s exactly the type of work that’s crying out for people to go and see it. So do, OK?
The final new release is Francois Ozon’s stylish comedy In The House, based upon the Spanish play The Boy in the Last Row by Juan Mayorga. Like most French films, it stars Kristin Scott-Thomas, and can adequately be described as “classy”. Formal games, cutting witticisms and spry middle-class social observations abound.
There’s plenty else on offer including: Ben Affleck’s entertaining, Oscar-winning beards n’ CIA caper Argo; Ken Loach’s rousing (if simplistic) socialist doc The Spirit of ’45; mad as a box of frogs, multi-character epic Cloud Atlas;Steven Soderbergh’s slick, pharmaceutical-themed thriller; fun caveman family animation The Croods (in 3D); Lee Daniels’ The Paperboy, which is equal parts sweaty, creepy, entertaining and terrible; unsettling true-life manipulo-thriller Compliance; and finally Sam Raimi’s colourful – if ultimately unsatisfying – Oz The Great and the Powerful, in both 2D and 3D iterations.
In terms of rep and non-mainstream cinema, you’ve got a couple of weekend lates (Fri and Sat) of Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive (a film whose modern day-cult classic status I find inexplicable… but I’ll save that argument for another day), and a Discover Tuesdays screening of the Taviani Brother’s thought-provoking and experimental docudrama Caesar Must Die, which tracks the inmates at an Italian prison as they prepare for, and stage, a performance of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy Julius Caesar.
There’s also a real treat on Friday afternoon: a screening of Kunle Afolayan’s ebullient Nollywood romcom Phone Swap, starring the charismatic Wale Ojo as a slick city businessman who, thanks to the titular mix-up, winds up taking stock of his life in a slow-paced, rural Nigerian village. It’s a hell of a lot of fun.
All films showing at the Ritzy Cinema, Brixton Oval. Book tickets here.
Ashley Clark runs the film blog Permanent Plastic Helmet. You can follow it on Twitter @PPlasticHelmet and/or him @_Ash_Clark.
