Films in London

[Roger Macy]

The only Japanese film at the London Film Festival so far has been Kitano's Kantoku banzai! .  The lunchtime showing was less than a quarter full.  I can remember laughing at two gags but I've forgotten what they were now as I've already seen some much better films.  A Kurdish film, DOL [translatable as both drum and valley] by Hiner Saleem reminded me much of Angelopoulos.  But it's a war film, not only pro-Kurd but virulently anti-Turkish.  The only review I could find on the web was at a Turkish site and was, unsurprisingly, not very sympathetic.

Ang Lee's Lust, Caution is surely both a critical and a commercial success.  It's in Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese dialect and, briefly, in Japanese.  It's an espionage thriller set in 1943 and, of course, the Japanese are the bad guys but there is no distinguishable Japanese character developed.  Occupation is a theme we could all learn from.  I'd be interested to know whether Ang Lee's films have done business in Japan in the past that might have ploughed a path for this to enter ?  Ang Lee did mention, incidentally, that his Ice Storm has a much greater following in the UK than the US.

At the Gala last night, London mayor Ken Livingstone, announced ?5m funding for the BFI to take a redevelopment plan for the Southbank to planning stage, "so that we can see more films like Ang Lee's".  Well, personally speaking, If Ken wants a monument, he'd do better to do better to do something about the backside of the National Theatre that we have to look at.   Even just cladding it in a cube of solar panels would provide an income stream for showing  world cinema.  For one or two per cent of his seed money, I'd staff up the National Gallery cinema in the evenings.  For a little more, I'd show them in other cities - although that won't get Ken any votes.  

Meanwhile, the National Gallery shows good films on Saturday afternoons only.  Next Saturday is Kinoshita's 24 eyes, and on 29th March next year they have Shinoda's Silence. 

Roger Macy
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