BOYHOOD

  A truthful, generous film with a gentle warmth. The family are naturalistic, flawed, funny and thoughtful. Breezing through time and memory while confronting how difficult life can be. Some scenes drift often in and out of my mind here and there, it could have been only a clever construct but Linklater and his cast have touched upon a magical flow.

FESTIVAL HANDS

http://gepettosongs.bandcamp.com/album/festival-hands

FILM STILL 4

Kay Bridgeman in Dreaming Will

FILM STILL 3

                                           William Hoyland in Dreaming Will

A POET'S TALE

Noriko's story

LOCKE

   Gabriel Ogier paid for his ticket, the server held up his note to the light. He'd given enough money for standard, he sat in a premier seat. Locke was a one man car phone nightmare. The protagonist takes a continuous motorway ride to witness the birth of his illegitimate child. In the process he reassures, argues with the non-visible, destroying his home-life, his work. Or are they actual beings that he is talking to? Gabriel felt trapped in the cinematic vehicle, confined to this solitary man's traumas without escape. It was a pretty intense journey.

 He walked out of the cinema at the end, wandering across the street to the squat gymnasium. Inside he took a seat on the floor. The live music began. Spanish blues harmonicas, northern howlers, too much reverb, hooded guys protesting with songs, chirpy munchkins. Been round the block beat-boxing, wooden microphone stand, funk backing group with Yamaha keys. Endless rapped readings and improvisations taken from blurred pen-marked notebooks, audience and performers, the same, connected. An unknown what next, freedom and openness, with some danger and edge. He danced with his friends, the two long dark-haired women, to the makeshift, booming speakers, blurting heavy, sweet reggae.

EXHIBITION

 D and H are an artistic couple, who's lives are shaped by their architectural house. They ponder, work in an experimental manner, have sex, spurn others, luxuriate in empty real time. Creative, non-actors Liam Gillick and Viv Albertine give brave, unaffected performances. Both, in unison, dowdy and erotic, analytical and mundane, we feel these people have been captured unaware. This is Joanna Hogg's best film so far, it's disarming, mysterious yet often amusing, she never takes obvious turns in plot and avoids yielding to conventional characterisation, shot with contained flair.