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EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2004

By Peter Murchie
Contact the author via the editor by e-mail at christopher.johnstone@ntlworld.com

It is so cool to be cycling around Edinburgh at festival time, a press pass fluttering gaily in the breeze, dashing between cinemas at unfeasibly early times of the morning, a bottle of mineral water always to hand. I suppose that if I were a proper journalist I’d find the whole thing a bit unexciting and all in a day’s work. But as occasional film reviewer for this esteemed organ, I am thrilled to be sitting in a half-empty cinema at 09:00 watching films which may never again see the light of day, but are nevertheless quirky, enjoyable and at the very least well-made.

From the hundreds of films on offer this year, choosing a small selection to go and see was a very difficult task. There is a strong representation from the Scottish film industry, as you might expect, and I had to start somewhere and Ken Loach’s new film “Ae Fond Kiss” was as good a place as any. Set in the leafy West End of Glasgow, with occasional jaunts over to the south side, this is not Romeo and Juliet, but it is an ill-fated romance between a young Muslim boy and an Irish Catholic schoolteacher, that right from the start made me think tears, end in, it’ll. There is a lot of humour - it’s a long time since I heard of a young man’s “tackle” being referred to as his “meat & 2 veg”. There is a great deal of invective, from both sides of the religious and cultural divide. Ken Loach’s careful treatment of the subject offers the view that although both sides may have a point, it is their inability to see the other side that causes all the trouble.

REVIEW:
Ae Fond Kiss
Ken Loach
UK/2004
Cast:Eva Birthistle, Atta Yaqub, Ahmad Riaz
The south side of Glasgow’s Asian community versus The Catholic Church and all its demons – there have got to be some sparks flying here. When a catholic schoolteacher begins a relationship with an Asian boy, his family are devastated. They will go to any lengths to bring him back to the life they have planned for him, an arranged marriage to his first cousin from Pakistan and a pine-clad extension to his parents’ house for the happy couple. The nice wee Irish girl has no family to get in the way but has to face the disapproval of the catholic church, which in this case is capable of getting her removed from her job and sent away “to teach the protestants”.
This film will make you laugh out loud – it may even make you cry – and it will certainly give you something to think about.
There is a fantastic performance from Atta Yaqub, whose only previous acting experience was in a school play, alongside Eva Birtwhistle, who went back to her bar job as soon as filming was over; surely not for long.
Paul Laverty’s script is very funny, and between this and Ken Loach’s light touch, they deal with some heavy stuff without resorting to cliché.

This is a theme explored to more shocking effect in “Yasmin”, set in a Muslim community in The Midlands, immediately following the September 11th attacks. Yasmin has agreed to an arranged marriage so that a young man from Pakistan can obtain a British Passport. She cooks for the men in her family and goes through the motions of being a good Muslim girl. On her way to work each morning, she sheds the veil and robe of her traditional dress in favour of jeans and sunglasses, ponytail and bubblegum. She indulges in office banter, flirts with a colleague and never talks about her home life. Life changes dramatically in the aftermath of September 11th. Armed police raids houses, men are rounded up for questioning, Yasmin is ostracised at work. The community becomes polarised and any sign of integration, tolerance and acceptance disappears. Yasmin begins the story rebelling gently against her Muslim faith and the constraints she feels are placed upon her because of that faith. As a result of the treatment meted out to her and her community she begins to shun the life she once desired and returns to the veil, her family and to the mosque.

REVIEW:
Yasmin
Dir: Kenny Glenaan
UK/2004
Cast: Renu Setna, Archie Panjabi, Steve Jackson
Yasmin is an Asian girl who, on the instruction of her father, has married a stranger from Pakistan in order that he should obtain British residency. She lives in an Asian community in The Midlands, cooks and cares for her father, brothers and this “husband”. She enjoys freedoms that not all young asian women do. Halfway along the road to her job in a factory, she stops the car, changes her clothes, puts on some shades, lights a fag and drives the rest of the way with pop music blaring from the radio. Her colleagues know nothing about her home life and she is an integral part of the workforce. Her is turned upside down after September 11th 2001.
It starts off as a bit of a joke. “Yas loves Osama” is written on a note on her locker “Whose Osama?” she protests. The company van has “Taliban Van” scratched into the dirt on the windows. The more she reacts, the worse it gets.
What’s happening to her is happening to Asians all over Britain at the same time. The backlash against British Muslims was never so well reported as the sensational crimes of Osama bin Laden’s followers on that terrible day. Armed police begin to make raids on Asian communities. A truly frightening episode has a gang of armed and masked men, policemen, burst into her home without warning yelling at her to tell them where her husband is.
Scriptwriter Simon Beaufoy is careful to present a balanced view. There are those who admire the “style” of the twin towers attack, who listen to the call for young men to go and join the cause. Yasmin’s father angrily rejects a call from within his community to show solidarity with those fighting in the name of Islam.
The community becomes polarised and any sign of integration, tolerance and acceptance disappears. Yasmin begins the story rebelling gently against her Muslim faith and the constraints she feels are placed upon her because of that faith. As a result of the treatment meted out to her and her community she begins to shun the life she once desired and returns to the veil, her family and to the mosque.

Taking the theme one step further, what happens when society has completely broken down? "The Purifiers" takes forward in time, to a Scottish city some time in the future where the city is controlled by a number of territorial karate gangs, engaged in an uneasy truce, but keeping up their kicking practice for when they might need it. Richard Jobson is a big fan of martial arts and indeed most of the cast is drawn from the martial arts community, doing their own fights and lending an air of authenticity to what is a largely unbelievable story. The great thing about films like this is that it doesn’t matter how many times the hero is bashed over the head and body with a crowbar, he still gets up and has another go, and every punch and kick he lands means certain death to the bad guy. No blood either – good guys don’t bleed, at least not as much as the bad guys.

REVIEW:
The Purifiers
Richard Jobson
UK/2004
Cast: Kevin McKidd, Gordon Alexander, Dominic Monaghan, Amber Sainsbury, Rachel Grant
A Scottish martial arts movie set in the future where the cities are controlled by territorial karate gangs, some of whom are in dire need of a personal stylist. The balance of power is upset when one of the gang leaders tries to unite them all, and take control, and The Purifiers don’t want to play. They soon find themselves fighting for their lives. So, we have a fight between the good guys and the bad gutys, with a bit of betrayal and greed thrown in for good measure. And this kind of fighting is very civilised. Ten against one? No problem, so long as nine combatants stand back while the good guy deals with one bad guy and then the next and so on until they are all in a tidy heap. In true Hong Kong Phooey style, the good guy can take any number of blows to the head and body – he still gets up for more. I want to know why they don’t lose their teeth, break their bones, bleed a bit more.
Filmed in a very futuristic looking Glasgow, even the underground looks 22nd century. There is an almost spooky absence of cars which in itself creates the illusion of this being a story out of our time. I wonder what time of night it was when they filmed the bit on the M8, where about a dozen motorbikes ride along in formation on what looks like the section between the Kingston Bridge and Townhead. Location spotting could prove to be a distraction to audiences in Glasgow.

From the future I take a leap back in time – triple spin, landing on both feet, facing the front, punches at the ready – to South America, 1952, and the story of a trip made by the young Ernesto (Che) Guevara and his friend Alberto Grenado. "The Motorcycle Diaries" is this year’s opening film and is the story of two young men and an elderly motorcycle travel from Buenes Aires to Caracas. The journey opens the eyes of a young Guevara to the poverty and injustice in the lives of the South American poor, and stirs in him the feelings that will later lead him to become a revolutionary. The majestic scenery of The Andes, the harshness of the lives of the mountain peasants are all captured here in this beautiful film.

REVIEW:
The Motorcycle Diaries
Dir:Walter Salles
Argentina, Chile, Peru & USA/2004
Cast: Gael Garcia Bernal, Rodrigo de la Serna
Gael Garcia Bernal stars as the young Ernesto (Che) Guevara, who in 1952, sets off from Buenes Aires with his friend Alberto Grenado to travel by motorcycle through Argentina, Chile and Peru with the aim of getting to Venezuela by Alberto’s 30th birthday.
Adapted from Che Guevara’s travel journal, it would be cruel to describe this as a breathtaking journey, since the young Ernesto is an asthmatic who suffers several acute attacks along the way. The two well-educated and middle class young men travel through South America and discover the hardships and injustices endured by the people of the country. They see for themselves how Andean peasants are turned off the land they have farmed for generations, so the land can be sold. They meet men and women who have had to abandon their homes to seek work from the mining companies that are responsible for the destruction of the traditional mountain life. The beginnings of a social conscience are awakened in these young men, particularly in Ernesto. They spend some weeks working as volunteers in a leper colony, where he rails against the nuns who run the place, questioning their decision not to feed anyone who does not attend Sunday Mass. The leper colony symbolises the hardships and injustice encountered by them on their journey: the poor and disenfranchised are just as much in the power of the wealthy as the lepers are in the power of those running the colony. This is a beautiful film, bathing us in the majestic splendour of the mountains and plains of South America. Ernesto predicts that while South Americans divide themselves into small penniless countries they will remain weak and under threat from Imperialist invaders, and according to writer Patrick Symmes, who remade Guevara’s journey recently, nothing much has changed.

Time for "Coffee & Cigarettes", a series of short films shot in Black & white, all about people smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. A bit like repeating a word over and over until it sounds ridiculous, showing one activity over and over again makes that activity look vaguely ridiculous. White stick in mouth, flames, lots of smoke, stub it out, start again – what a crazy think to do. And as for drinking cupfuls of dark liquid that can't be hot because it's been sitting on the table for ages - how mad is that? But keep watching. It took a while for it to dawn on me that these were all well-known people, playing themselves, and had I been really switched on I’d have recognise them. I failed to identify Roberto Benigni and Steven Wright debating which one of them would attend Wright’s dental appointment, but when Steve Buscemi appears as a waiter in a coffee shop telling the Lee twins that coffee & cigarettes is not a very healthy lunch, I begin to cotton on. Iggy Pop and Tom Waits are an uneasy pair of rock stars, anxious that neither has any of their records on the diner’s jukebox. Look out for an excruciating exchange between Alfred Molina and Steve Coogan and give yourself extra points if you can identify the two old gentlemen in the final piece, entitled “Champagne”.

REVIEW:
Coffee & Cigarettes
Jim Jarmusch/USA/2003
Test your film and music knowledge with this series of vignettes, filmed in B&W, with people like Roberto Benigni and Bill Murray playing themselves. The theme is the coffee & cigarettes of the title. My personal favourite, “Somewhere in California”, had Iggy Pop meeting Tom Waits in a coffee shop, both surreptitiously checking the juke box to see if either of their stuff was on the play list, while they assured each other that now that they’d given up smoking that it would be okay to have just one. Cate Blanchett reprises her trailer trash brunette character from The Shipping News when she appears as both herself and her cousin meeting in a swanky hotel while the movie star takes a break from interviews. I only hope for Steve Coogan’s sake that he had lapsed into Alan Partridge mode and is not really the complete plonker he appears to be in “Cousins?” in which he plays alongside Alfred Molina.
By the end of the series you will know that coffee & cigarettes is not a very healthy lunch. You may also have been introduced to Tesla’s theory that the earth is a conductor for acoustic resonance. You may be still trying to place the charming old gentlemen in the last scene who are trying to imagine themselves in Paris drinking champagne instead of having a break on a studio back lot, drinking lousy coffee from a paper cup. Well I won’t put you out of your misery …..

If after all that caffeine and nicotine you require further stimulation, go an see “Process”. I was drawn to it because it stars Beatrice Dalle (Betty Blue) and Guillaume Depardieu. It is the story of an actress who is in a spiral of self-destruction that eventually leads to her suicide. Along the way she subjects herself to violence of a physical and sexual nature, exploring the limits of her endurance. I must confess that I lasted only 30 minutes before leaving. I’m not sure why anyone would want to sit and watch this. Simultaneous vaginal and anal penetration with one participant slapping and punching each of the other two; it was all a bit much for me so early in the morning. Still, maybe I’ve led a sheltered life.

I retreat to the safety and protection of The American Eagle Christian High School, and "Saved!" - the teen movie with a difference. Don’t be put off by the description of this film. A ‘teen’ movie set in a Christian American High School, where Mary offers up her virginity in an attempt to save her gay boyfriend from eternal damnation, then becomes pregnant. See how the religious zealots deal with that one. It has some jaw-dropping moments of sheer bigotry and intolerance. Zealots are scary, 16 year old zealots in bobby socks are terrifying.

REVIEW:
Saved!
Dir Brian Dannelly
USA/2004
Cast: Jena Malone, Mandy Moore, Macauley Culkin, Eva Amurri
Set in The American Eagle Christian High School, Saved! is the teen movie with a difference. Don’t be put off by the description of this film. A ‘teen’ movie set in a Christian American High School, where Mary offers up her virginity in an attempt to save her gay boyfriend from eternal damnation, then becomes pregnant. See how the religious zealots deal with that one. It has some jaw-dropping moments of sheer bigotry and intolerance. Zealots are scary, 16 year old zealots in bobby socks are terrifying.
There is a lot of humour, although I’m not sure how funny some of it is meant to be. All the essential elements of the teen movie are here. There is the beautiful but ghastly cheerleader type, who is controlling, judgmental and yet remains the most popular girl in town. Her friends have all become submerged by her because she is sooo like, you know, popular. The bad girl, played by a magnificent Eva Amurri, climbs ladders without wearing any underwear and chooses to come to this school because it is the only alternative to home education, having been expelled from every other school in the area. There is even a high school prom.
Macauley Culkin plays the popular girl’s disabled brother, (he is described by his sister sweetly as differently abled) who displays perfect comic timing with his dead pan responses to his sister’s pronouncements and scandalises her by having a sexual relationship with the bad girl (the one not wearing any panties).

I really need something to make me feel good. And I find it in "Dear Frankie", which is a heart-warming tale of a wee boy, Frankie, living in the West of Scotland, looks like Greenock, with his mum and granny. Frankie is deaf, nine years old and a champion lip reader. His mum, Lizzie played by Emily Mortimer, has invented a dad in the merchant navy who sends him regular letters from exotic ports around the world. Lizzie goes to elaborate lengths to maintain this fiction, writes the letters and collects the replies from a post office box. When Frankie finds out that his dad’s ship is due to call at the local port, the fiction is set to unravel. Rather than confess the truth, she hires a handsome stranger to play the part of Frankie’s dad for the day. What happens next illustrates the perils of lying, but don’t tell the kids, it also shows us that truth is not always the best thing.

REVIEW:
Dear Frankie
Dir: Shona Auerbach
UK 2004
Cast:Emily Mortimer, Gerard Butler, Jack McElhone, Sharon Small, Mary Riggans
Lizzie is moving – again – dragging her nine-year-old son and her mother with her, in a beat up white van containing all their worldly goods. She drives over the Renfrewshire hills into the back of Greenock and moves her family into a tenement flat, sends the boy out for chips, and help her mum tune in the telly. Domestic bliss? No, not quite. She is running, and has been for years, from an abusive husband, Frankie’s father. He can’t remember his father and so Lizzie invents a new dad for her son, a merchant seaman who writes but cannot visit. It’s an elaborate lie; she writes the letters and buys exotic stamps from a stamp dealer to make them look authentic. She intercepts Frankie’s replies and things might go on forever if Frankie hadn’t read that his dad’s ship is to due in to the local docks. Lizzie curses her luck that she should have chosen a real ship for her story, chooses to expand the lie rather than tell Frankie the truth. She hires a handsome stranger to play the part of Frankie’s dad for the day. We’re always telling kids to tell the truth, that the truth is always better than a lie – is that the biggest lie of all?

There will be many films from this year’s festival that will achieve mainstream success. Richard Eyre’s new film, "Stage Beauty", will be compared to Shakespeare in Love, and will come out on top; it’s in a different league. Others may achieve cult status like the Korean film "Old Boy", a violent and brutal tale of love and honour, vengeance and retribution, and a lot of blood.

REVIEW:
Stage Beauty
Dir:Richard Eyre
UK & USA/2004
Cast: Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, Rupert Everett, Ben Chaplin, Tom Wilkinson
In 17th Century Restoration England , it is illegal for a woman to appear on stage and so every part is played by men and boys. Samuel Pepys writes that the most beautiful woman on the English stage is Ned Kynaston played by the surprisingly pretty Billy Crudup. In a seedy backstreet theatre a daring new production of Othello is being staged. Looking for something new to amuse their audiences, the part of Desdemona is played by a woman, a Mrs Margaret Hughes, the stage name of Maria, Kynaston’s dresser and friend, played to perfection by Claire Danes.
Rupert Everett is a hoot as Charles II and steals every scene he’s in. On a whim, the king overturns the edict banning women from appearing on stage, and egged on by his mistress, Nell Gwynne, declares that henceforth, no man may play the part of a woman. Poor old Kynaston has spent his whole life acquiring the mannerisms and affectations of women, and now finds that he cannot play the part of a man. Ironically, Maria has spent years watching Kynaston from the wings, yearning to be on stage herself, and when she gets the chance she turns out to be such a poor actress that she is unable to play Desdemona. Which is no barrier to her becoming a star. No change there then.
This is a richly produced historical drama, reminiscent of Shakespeare in Love only in the lavish reproduction of a long gone era, and because Tom Wilkinson is in it. Bits of the set look very familiar, but what’s a hundred years between friends? This is a much grittier film, with fewer Hollywood egos to contend with, and as a result is far more satisfying.

REVIEW:
Old Boy
Dir: Park Chan-wook
South Korea/2004
A thriller which is fairly slow to start but if you stay for the first 45 minutes you will be on tenterhooks to find out what is going on in this bloody and brutal film. A drunken and badly behaved businessman is drugged and kidnapped on his way home from a drinking session. When he wakes up he is in a small room in which he is held for the next 15 years. He doesn’t know why or by whom. He has a TV on which he sees that his wife has been murdered and that he is the only suspect. His daughter has disappeared without trace. And then, after 15 years, he is suddenly released. Except that he remains a virtual prisoner of his captor, watched and controlled, as he seeks out an explanation for and to avenge his lost years. There is a lot of blood!

In the documentary section, Riding Giants will send a whole generation off in search of a surf board and the perfect wave, as long as they are back from that climbing trip to The Andes.

Nothing that makes it as far as an international film festival is without merit – and for each of the films I did see there were at least another 10 I’d like to have seen. Another great year – roll on EIFF 2005.

Other hoolet online articles by Josie Inwood can be found at:
hoolet edition 50 - EIFF 2006
hoolet edition 46 - EIFF 2005
hoolet edition 42 - EIFF 2004
hoolet edition 38 - EIFF 2003

hoolet is the magazine of RCGP Scotland. It is supported intellectually, financially and emotionally by RCGP Scotland.

This issue maintained by Robert Hallam.