|
 Sadly time issues meant my bite at this year's mango had to be limited to a mere one-day nibble, as World Cinema came to town in Bradford for the 14th year running. A highly flavoured and robust mouthful none the less, seeing 3 films of the 30+ on offer, and a screentalk with special guest, director Waris Hussein, on the first full day of the festival.
After studying theatre design, Hussein went to work as a BBC trainee and fell by accident into becoming the director of the first Dr Who series. Subsequently he directed many of the television's finest one-off dramas and drama series (including A Passage to India and Edward and Mrs Simpson), moving later to films and US TV drama. An unsung hero of British screen large and small (he was born in India but moved to England at the age of nine), he proved a fascinating and charming subject, self- deprecating and full of anecdotes about the greats: Taylor and Burton, Olivier, Sybil  Thorndyke, Anthony Hopkins and Shirley MacLaine. Tales of the making of the latter's The Possession of Joel Delaney, of supernatural doings and diabolical vibes on set during an exorcism scene, where the central figure collapsed (leading to certain continuity errors), several people walked off in distress and Shirley M was not acting in her swoony reactions as the scene reached its climax, meant that those of us who watched the film immediately afterwards were well spooked from the start. Predating such films as The Omen and The Exorcist, yet never gaining their notoriety, It's the tale of a pampered, well-heeled New Yorker who discovers that her beloved brother has become possessed by the spirit of a Puerto Rican murderer. With many classic horror ingredients, it's as much about her descent into the unknown, unnoticed lives of the poor people who live so close by and underpin her luxurious way of life, in an attempt to save her brother. MacLaine is superb in the, unusually for her, pretty dislikeable central role. And it is also a very scary film. From the positively Bunuellian discreet menace of the bourgeoisie in the early scene of an arty cocktail party, to the suffocating atmosphere of the attempted exorcism, down to the Funny Games-ish denoument, it keeps up the horror.  Two films earlier in the day were from S E Asia. First up from Malaysia, Gubra (Anxiety) directed by Yasmin Ahmad. It's partly a sprawling, noisy tale of families, partly a portrait of pure goodness in the form of a young imam and his wife. Daft humour and intense emotion crowd together, often somewhat uncomfortably, but the whole caboodle is saved from excess by unexpected moments of beautiful repose to a background of Beethoven.
Slingshot directed by Brillante Mendoza is in different league. Think City of God, then take away the joy and colour. The alleyways of Manila's teeming slums are the focus for Mendoza's hurrying, relentless camera, now cutting in close on faces, now chasing the figures at running pace, as it follows the intersecting lives of a collection of youths, crooks, corrupt police, children, con artists and intensely impoverished people, cutting across the city and changing stories as one individual crosses the path of another, tracing out patterns in the chaos. It's a bold idea and it works. Grey is the predominant tone - the grey of grimy, crumbling apartments, of the mean streets which are the children's playgrounds, of malnourished skin, and of open sewers, like the one where a girl scrabbles in the mud for the dentures she has lost - her only passport to beauty. Police brutality and political cynicism feed on this wasteland, and the church provides no comfort, only a compulsive dark respite from daily life. A film that leaves you gasping for air, never easy to watch, with no message of comfort. Sadly that was all I had time for, but Sunday at the festival brought a special day of martial arts films, and during the following week, as well as Malaysia, Colombian cinema was a particular focus. Tarem Singh's sumptuous The Fall opened the festival, and the closing gala film was the Chinese epic Three Kingdoms. As ever Mango offered the chance to see films which may well never be seen elsewhere in Britain, as well as an early look at films like The Fall before their general release here. Just for a week in September, World Cinema comes to Bradford. Bite The Mango Festival, National Media Museum, Bradford, September 19-25 2008 |
