London Film Festival 2017

GHOST STORIES: the first film seen started life as a stage play with one of the authors playing the
lead role of an academic who debunks the supernatural.   He is contacted by a celebrated parapsychologist who has 'disappeared' and given three cases which the latter says he has been unable
to explain rationally.   These cases take up the rest of the film which deals with each case in turn.
The precis in the catalogue says 'it's bloody terrifying, too' which is a serious exaggeration of what
we actually see.   Some of the standard tropes are employed but scary the film is not - and I am one of
those who will at the relevant moment hide my eyes.   A poor start to the week.
BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL: Takashi Miike's 100th film is based on a famous manga series which
starts with a renegade samurai looking after his sister who has been traumatised into a childlike state
by the death of her husband.   She is caught by those hunting them and, although the samurai lays
down his weapons to secure her release, she is deliberately killed: the samurai's immediate revenge
results in bloody mayhem leaving him all but dead until he is given immortality by a witch.   He
seeks redemption by saving a young girl whose parents have been murdered by members of a
fighting school which has been removing all opposition from their particular style of combat.   Our
hero tracks down the leaders one by one until the denouement which is even bloodier than the
opening battle.   Brilliantly crafted and filmed, this must be one of Miike's best.   Incidental to the
film was its screening in a temporary marquee in the Victoria Embankment Gardens.
LITTLE VERONIKA (INNOCENCE): a 1930 Austrian silent with the fluidity that later silent films
had achieved, this tells of a young girl going from her Tyrolean village to Vienna to stay with her
aunt.   Neither she nor her mother know that her aunt is a prostitute which makes the girl a potential
addition to the brothel though her aunt does not seem to be too eager for this.   She goes with her
aunt to a party where she is seduced by a middle-aged man who takes her to his apartment.   While
she is convinced he is the love of her life, he throws her out the next morning and she returns to the
Tyrol where she tries to drown herself but is saved by a friend she met again in Vienna who loves
her.   All's well that ends well.... The background of Viennese streets did not provide stunning views
of a disappeared city, the heroine was pleasant enough but looked (and was) some ten years older
than her character and the only plus is the continued existence of a film of this age.
Incidental comment number two: prior to the Miike film, an email from the BFI said films would
start on time and there would be no trailers.   This film started some 5 minutes late though, compared
with previous years, I suppose this could be considered on time.
THE SHAPE OF WATER: Guillermo del Toro's offering to the Festival started 20 minutes late and there was a trailer!   Sally Hawkins plays a mute woman working as a cleaner in a secret military
facility where an aquatic creature from the Amazon has been brought - shades of 'The Creature From
the Lagoon'.   Michael Shannon is in charge and delights in torturing the creature but Hawkins is
curious and makes friends with it in no small part by giving it a hard-boiled egg.   Their rapport
is seen by one of the project scientists who is actually a Russian spy (not that this really adds to
the story though it does amplify the atmosphere).   With help from a fellow cleaner and a neighbour,
she gets the creature to her apartment where eventually they somehow consummate what has become
love for each other.   They realise the creature must return to the wild but have to wait until a nearby
canal inlet is filled some days hence once the rains come.   This happens but Shannon has worked
out what occured which leads to a thrilling climax at the water's edge.   Hawkins was excellent as
were Octavia Spencer as a fellow cleaner, Richard Jenkins as her friend and neighbour and Shannon
as the villain.   I did not seen the point of the domestic interludes between Shannon and his family
but this is a small negative to what was del Toro's best film for some time.
LUCKY: 88 minutes of Harry Dean Stanton at his best playing the eponymous lead as an old retired
cowboy in a small community.   He gets up, exercises, goes to the town to buy milk, visits the diner
and one of the bars (apparently having been banned from the other) and repeats this the next day.
The value of the film lies in the spare script and the spot-on characterisation by Stanton of his role -
probably playing himself in later years after 'Paris, Texas'.   A nice framing is the opening shot of
a turtle crawling off into the bush, its loss bewailed by its owner David Lynch, and the final shot
of its return in the foreground while Stanton is gradually fading into the distance.   Very much a
chamber piece but very, very good.   Started more or less on time following trailer.
The PRINCE OF ADVENTURERS CASANOVA: a very long silent 1928 French film which was
trying to outdo Hollywood as a spectacle.   A set of episodes from Casanova's life which opens in
Venice, moves to Russia and returns to Venice.   With Ivan Mosjoukine in the lead, "(he) was born
to play this mischievous Harlequin with the melancholy heart" the programme says but does not add
that for contemporary eyes he was anything but attractive.   Two colour sequences were promised
but one was sepia only.   A rather disappointing film despite the considerable expense which had been
lavished on costumes and settings with this downbeat feeling emphasised by the fact that we had seen
a slightly shorter version of the film on German television some years ago with the title only being
'Casanova'.   Slightly late starting after a repeat trailer for "North By Northwest'.