Last at the Festival with 2017’s rural noir Dark River, a selection in the Platform programme, writer-director Clio Barnard returns to the Bradford, West Yorkshire setting of her earlier films for this tumultuous, fiercely affecting midlife love story.
A bundle of good humour and nervous energy, Ali (Adeel Akhtar) is a British Pakistani working-class landlord who forges close bonds with his tenants. One day, while picking up one of his tenants’ children from school, he offers a lift to Ava (Claire Rushbrook), an Irish-born teacher and single mother of five. They bond almost instantly through their love of music, though Ali favours the high energy of Buzzcocks and hip-hop while Ava takes refuge in the quieter comforts of Bob Dylan and Karen Dalton. Despite their divergent backgrounds, differences in their stages of life, and the colour of their skin, despite the fact of Ali’s failing marriage and Ava’s fraught relationship with her adult and adolescent children, each finds themself irresistibly drawn to the other. But can their mutual desire transcend a barrage of personal obstacles?
Inspired by people Barnard encountered while making her acclaimed features The Arbor and The Selfish Giant, Ali & Ava is a film that feels profoundly rooted in lived experience, blending a tender emotional complexity with an at times bracing depiction of trauma and grief. Akhtar and Rushbrook’s finely hued performances speak to the setting’s cultural diversity and tribal loyalties while yielding a vulnerability that’s alternately heart-wrenching and joyous. Their story serves as a reminder that it is sometimes the least likely connections that are the ones most worth pursuing.
麦克白将军(迈克尔·法斯宾德 Michael Fassbender 饰)是苏格兰国王邓肯(大卫·休里斯 David Thewlis 饰)的表弟,在外抵御外敌平反谋乱,战功赫赫,某日归国途中,遇见了三个女巫,女巫预言麦克白将会加官进爵,此言令麦克白心中蠢蠢欲动。然而,最终将要继承王位的,却是班柯将军(帕迪·康斯戴恩 Paddy Considine 饰)的儿子。
在妻子(玛丽昂·歌迪亚 Marion Cotillard 饰)的怂恿之下,麦克白杀死了国王,登上了王座,为了保住王位和弑君的秘密,麦克白的双手沾满了鲜血,班柯将军、麦克德夫夫人(伊丽莎白·德比齐 Elizabeth Debicki 饰)和她的孩子均死在了麦克白的屠刀之下,而麦克白亦在疯狂的道路上渐行渐远。
修伯特是個十幾歲的男孩,他的父親因為滯留在西方不肯回國而被視為叛國賊,母親為了他著想,忍痛將他送到華沙跟姑姑同住。在波蘭共黨高壓統治的時代,這個高貴、難解卻又叛逆的姑姑經營了一家馬術俱樂部,她不但不准男孩叫他姑姑,還為他編造了一段符合政治正確的身世,讓他順利插班就讀。過去在母親嚴格要求正直誠實的教養下成長的修伯特,從姑姑身上發現了不一樣的世界。男孩從疑惑到逐步發現姑姑的秘密,而終於瞭解到一些他原本難以想像的事實,也改變了他對真理的認知。
《狂奔岁月》(Cwal/ At Full Gallop,1996)是赞努西另一部可圈可点的作品。也许是政治情势的转变,也许是创作者自身年岁的增长所致,这部回顾一九五○年代波兰共党高压统治时代的作品,非但没有想象中的正经八百,反而流露了温馨、童稚的情感,赞努西甚至在电影最后现身说法,除了自承某些情节来自个人亲身经历外,甚至带着演员一块谢幕,幽默得紧。
This film tells the rise of a Malay warrior named Mat Kilau and his friends against the British colonialists who came to Pahang in 1890. The greed of British officials and policies, which have imposed excessive taxes, confiscated land belonging to the Malays to reap the treasures of Pahang and disrupted the Islamic way in Pahang has caused dissatisfaction among the rulers and the Malays. The patriotic spirit of Mat Kilau and his friends who rose up against British violence had caused Captain Syers to launch an attack on Mat Kilau. Witness the heroic spirit of Mat Kilau, Tok Gajah and Mat Kilau's best friends use their wisdom to fight in the jungle against the British soldiers. Did Mat Kilau and his friends succeed in driving out the barbaric and greedy British army to reap gold and tin in Pahang?