Film Reviews

LASHANA LYNCH ON FIRE I n ear for eye, the black box stage of contemporary theatre becomes a dark cinematic space for naming the sociopolitical boxes in which Black people are too often trapped. Esoteric and poetic, but with an unmistakable clarity of vision, this heated feature from British playwright debbie tucker green takes her 2018 play of the same name and fills it with filmic flourishes, like non-linear manipulations of time, place, voice, costume, body and spirit. Among the ensemble cast, Lashana Lynch (No Time to Die) plays an upstanding uni student who confronts her unethical professor (Demetri Goritsas, Black Mirror) with ice and fire.

The Australian premiere of this ferocious film opens ACMI’s Dissenters, Lovers & Ghosts: New British Cinema line-up (31 March to 17 April). Far from a last-gasp overreach of cultural imperialism from Old Blighty, the suite features artists from the margins by exploring the theme “Who Are We Now?”. To that end, the program boasts the national premiere of social-realist thriller County Lines, the first Victorian screening of lauded drama After Love, and the chance to see semi-recent gems Lovers Rock, Saint Maud and Mogul Mowgli on the big screen. As per a cultural exchange program running in collaboration with the British Council, the BFI Southbank will, in turn, present Antipodean films to London audiences later this year. I’m hoping that Friends and Strangers, a cunning study of so-called “Australian” identity, will make the cut. AK

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Shove over, Wake in Fright (1971). There’s a new rendering of white Australia’s bent for aggressive friendliness – and the killer colonial hangover it cannot hide – in town. But where that Ozploitation classic mined city folks’ fears of the outback, with its dusty, working-class denizens, Friends and Strangers finds terror in the waterfront real estate of Sydney’s North Shore, populated by upper middle-class drifters like Alice (Emma Diaz) and Ray (Fergus Wilson). Writer-director James Vaughan’s debut feature is a droll look at concrete and ennui. Though the plot wafts around like a lost moth, its feigned naivety is a sly cover for commentary on class, age, art, the monarchy and our local fear of feelings. Harnessing the quirks of colloquial patter – “Ya reckon?”, “Should be good”, “Can’t hurt” – Vaughan prods the national capacity to say nothing of substance. An anthropological reading of people pissing privilege away like a big, cold beer, Friends and Strangers shows how settler anxieties spread like salt damp through a haunted house. AIMEE KNIGHT

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Based on a true story, this whimsical film from Notting Hill director Roger Michell stars Jim Broadbent as Kempton Bunton, who stole a valuable Goya painting – Portrait of the Duke of Wellington – from London’s National Gallery in 1961. Holding the portrait to ransom as a way to campaign for the rights of the elderly and impoverished, Bunton comes off as a lovable, comic folk hero. The Duke tells its story in a rollicking tone, with jaunty music and playful editing. It makes for easy viewing, but ultimately leaves the film lacking a sense of depth. Take Bunton’s wife Dorothy (Helen Mirren), who works as a maid and is the sole income-earner in the household, as well as the only one who cooks and cleans – meaning her unpaid labour allows Kempton the time and freedom to go on his fanciful escapades. The film never acknowledges this power imbalance nor does it interrogate the intersection of gender with age and poverty. While The Duke is a lighthearted bit of fun, these underexplored storylines feel like a missed opportunity. IVANA BREHAS

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In this visually stunning documentary, Australian nature filmmaker Jennifer Peedom (Mountain) explores how rivers have shaped human culture and history. Narrated by Willem Dafoe, the film is a hazy cascade of dreamlike visuals set against a score performed by the Australian Chamber Orchestra. It opens with aerial views of fast-moving rivers, waterfalls and ice caps as Dafoe rushes through a condensed history of civilisation, asking when humans stopped treating rivers as sacred and instead as subjects. The film falls flat in its attempt to contrast the Global South’s reverence of the river with the industrious North’s need to control it. There’s an over-reliance on predictable tropes: Asian rice paddies, South-East Asian children in fishing boats, religious ceremonies of the Ganges. The film lacks a critical examination of how capitalism has brought rivers to their knees. To quote Dafoe, “Are we being good ancestors” when we can’t even examine ourselves? SAMIRA FARAH