Memories of Murder – like a particularly corrupt episode of Line of Duty with added comedy entrances (QFT until Sun 26 Sep)

When sales of an author’s book take off, a light is often shone on their back catalogue and some older words are reissued to a willing audience of readers. So too with films.

Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite (recently re-released in foreboding black and white) has encouraged distribution of a 4K restoration of his older film Memories of Murder.

Monday night’s screening in Queen’s Film Theatre was full (in the sense of socially distanced seating full, but still busier than most Monday night’s in a Belfast cinema) as people sat down to savour this threat.

The family at the heart of Parasite start out as well-meaning entrepreneurs and become cold hearted leeches sucking the life out of their well-to-do host family’s property. Similar character journeys crop up in this earlier work, along with the darkly comic moments that invade very serious scenes.

It’s October 1986, and local police detectives Park (Song Kang-ho) and Cho (Kim Roi-ha) demonstrate their inept and corrupt techniques as they use baseless assumptions and bewildering predictions in their attempts to investigate the rape and murder of several women in their district.

Into this fray comes Seo (Kim Sang-kyung), a colleague from South Korea’s capital Seoul, whose textbook mantra is that “documents never lie”. But as the body count increases and the police run out of suspects to torture confessions out of, there’s a curious transition as the upright Seo is led by his heart while Park becomes more attentive to the evidence.

Meanwhile Kwon (Go Seo-hee), a female officer who is ordered to make tea and perform menial tasks, gets little thanks when she makes breakthroughs in the case.

There’s no shortage of serial killer films and TV series, and like most, women are certainly not at the heart of this one). Everyone will relish the comical entrances made by cast members while fans of Parasite will enjoy the rainy scenes and recognise Bong’s use of jump-scares.

Ultimately this is a story of women and families let down by incompetence, malpractice and a rush to get results. More than 15 years after the film’s release, the real case upon which Bong and co-writer Shim Sung-bo based their film was finally solved.

Bong’s characters are flawed in unexpected ways. His ability to sprinkle comedy over the darkest of scenes is unnerving to watch. I can only hope that some of the rest of his back catalogue will make its way to western cinema screens before too long.

Memories of Murder is being screened in Queen’s Film Theatre until Sunday 26 September.

Rocks – newcomers impress in a great portrayal of loss, isolation and friendship (QFT until 1 October)

Rocks charts the reactions of an East London teenage girl friendship group as one of their own adjusts to the sudden absence of her mother from their single parent family and the sudden need to take on caring responsibilities for her kid brother.

Bukky Bakray plays Shola, the steely young woman nicknamed ‘Rocks’, who is at the heart of the story. She shows talent as a make-up artist, but at the rate she is burning through schoolfriends after the loss of her mother, electricity and then the security of her home, the other meaning of make up becomes crucial to her survival. Little Emmanuel (D'angelou Osei Kissiedu) is a loveable, dinosaur-obsessed daydreamer, dragged around along with his class pet, and mostly unaware of the seriousness of their situation.

There’s an authenticity to the dialogue and interactions between the youths that’s explained (in a recorded discussion shown after last night’s QFT screening) by the long months of workshopping and on set improvisation with the impressive ensemble, most of whom are starring in their debut feature. Theresa Ikoko and Claire Wilson’s screenplay has been homed and polished, as has the film’s foundational soundtrack that is ever present yet never in the way.

An early moment dips into the inner-city school’s careers class where anyone with hifalutin aspirations is quickly advised to have a more realistic plan B. Rocks proves that she’s capable and resourceful, even if she makes bad decisions when caught in tight spots. The tension and eventual explosion of anger between Rocks and stalwart best friend Sumaya (Kosar Ali) is really well drawn by director Sarah Gavron, and the sense that Rocks’ problems are in a different league to the issues troubling her friends is subtly underlined throughout the 93-minute film.

The film paints a profound picture of increasing isolation and diminishing hope as Rocks defers seeking help. A school art lesson on cubism and Picasso injects interesting points about identity. After the first few scenes, Rocks’ mother is no longer visible. Yet her presence, or the gap her absence causes, is felt all the way through as we wonder whether she will have even half the support Rocks can muster to work through her mental health problems.

The sharp-tongued multi-cultural gang of girls can cut someone in two with a sharp phrase, yet are fiercely loyal to one of their own as they figure out if and how they can help. Short snippets of mobile phone footage – even some vertical video thrown in, which works surprisingly well given the physical height of the cinema screen – and lots of banter grounds the vibe. Rooftop picnic scenes with vistas over London remind us that this fictional story is happening in real life but mostly not being talked about.

Other films like The Florida Project and Moonlight achieve a level of authenticity, but for a low budget film with a teenage cast, Rocks really delivers a stunning peek into other people’s lives without labouring the point or taking audiences on a guilt-trip.

You can watch Rocks in Queen’s Film Theatre until 1 October.

La Haine – novel angles to view a familiar story of community tension and state brutality (QFT until Thursday 24 September)

“Hatred breeds hatred” says Hubert, a black boxer played by Hubert Koundé who deals in drugs and warns his friends that not all cops are bad. Vinz (Vincent Cassel) is outwardly aggressive, promising to use a service weapon he found to avenge the death of a man attacked and hospitalised by the police. Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui) is a Muslim lad, boasting about things he hasn’t done, mildly hot-headed until there is actual conflict at which point he becomes a shy voice of calm.

Written and directed by Mathieu Kassovitz and first released in 1995, La Haine (‘Hate’) spends a day in the life of this almost clueless trio, learning about life in Chanteloup-les-Vignes, a 40 minute rail ride north west from the centre of Paris. The kind of young guys who don’t own up to their farts, pull the ‘your mother’ or ‘your sister’ card to escalate an argument, and can barely hotwire a car never mind drive one. Vinz might be carrying a gun, but would be really ever pull the trigger?

When the film was released in 1995, The Independent reported that the then French Prime Minister Alain Juppe organised a special screening for the cabinet: attendance was mandatory. I wonder was there facilitated discussion afterwards led by residents of the area, or was there just loud tutting and the empty silence of a penny failing to drop?

La Haine demonstrates what happens when the state gangs up on a community, labelling everyone as a bad egg, pushing them into economic and housing distress until the pressure escapes and the scale of crime ratchets up towards the top end of the scale. Scenes of rioting, armoured vehicles, communities looting their local shops and burning out their own area. A TV news report of conflict elsewhere in Europe in the background of one scene hints that the story is universal. It’s certainly frighteningly familiar.

The French equivalent of Del Boy (nicknamed ‘Walmart’) lives in a high rise flat full of boxed up electronic goods he can no longer sell after his wheels were torched. At times, there’s almost a comical Trainspotting-esque note to the dialogue. Banal asides and lengthy anecdotes punctuate the group’s constant movement. They generate ‘so what?’ responses from the on-screen characters and the cinema audiences, underscoring the futility of the situation.

The choice of filming in black and white emphasises just how much colour is at play in this fictional story built around a real incident in 1993. It highlights the greyness of the police. The unusual camera angles hint that Kassovitz wants the audience to look at the situation from novel perspectives to step into the lives of the oppressed and disrespected. There’s no doubt that there’s fault on all sides: but it’s clear why the cycle of violence is being perpetuated.

Twenty-five years on, the anniversary re-release of La Haine stands up to the test of time. It’s visually clever, with a use of slang that must have delighted the subtitlers. Les Misérables is still being screened for another couple of days (until Thursday 17 September) in Queen’s Film Theatre. It’s a like a modern sequel to La Haine, in colour with far more anger, and a lot more focus on the behaviour of the police. Both films peek under the lid of the pressure cooker of community tensions, poor housing, joblessness and disrespect and ask where the power lies, and from where the solution will come.

La Haine finishes its run in the Queen’s Film Theatre on Thursday 24 September. If you enjoyed this review, why not buy me a tea ...

Bill & Ted Face the Music – a better adventure for being less pale, stale and male (UK and Irish cinemas from 16 September)

Bumbling bandmates Bill and Ted’s adventures have been occurring since the late 1980s. If you weren’t well through school in 1989 when the first film came out, here’s what you missed.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure was to blame for school children overusing the words ‘dude’, ‘excellent’ and bodacious. Theodore ‘Ted’ Logan (Keanu Reeves) and William ‘Bill’ Preston (Alex Winter) have been identified as ‘The Great Ones’ by future inhabitants of the world who send Rufus (George Carlin) back to help the teenagers engage in a spot of time travel and counteract the words of the opening song that say “you can’t change the course of your own destiny”. They play historical Pokémon, collecting (white) American and European figures from the past to help them get a much-needed high score in their end-of-year history presentation.

Two years later, the sequel returned to San Dimas, California where a big band contest was on the cards along with a double wedding with two 15th century English brides (who were willing trafficked into the future it that’s ever moral or possible). But neither the Wyld Stallyns band nor love follow a straight path when a couple of automaton imposters get in the way. Bill & Ted’s Bogus Adventure is as grim as the reaper (played by William Sadler in scenes that start out with a very The Seventh Seal feel) who accompanies them on their journey back to modern day life.

So is the threequel bodacious or bogus?

Bill & Ted Face the Music is so much less pale, stale and male. Gone are most of the tonally awful attitudes towards women and sex. Gone too are the youthful zest and naïve ignorance that propelled the energy of at least the first episode. Reeves and Winter play world-weary fathers whose mojo is flagging and who are thoroughly unprepared to take up the latest Eurovision-style challenge to unite the world in song … in 77 minutes time.

But fear not, this is 2020 and women are allowed to think and speak and even act out of their own initiative. For the second time, the princesses/wives have been swapped out, this time for younger models, Erinn Hayes and Jayma Mays. But they do at least get some more screentime.

The stars of the new film are the Great Ones’ daughters Thea (Samara Weaving from last year’s fabulous gorefest Ready or Not) and Billie (Brigette Lundy-Pain) who get to play greatest musicians of all time Pokémon and round up a diverse group of historical figures to play the ultimate anthem to save the world. Lundy-Pain has the mannerisms of teenage Ted off pat while the young pair mimic the talking in unison and finishing each other’s sentences so familiar from the first two incarnations of Bill & Ted.

William Sadler is back as the grim Reaper, and there are numerous nods to George Carlin who played the lads’ guide Rufus in the original film and died in 2008. Throw in a persistent and then penitent robot killer and you have a literal bus load of cast to transport to the end of the film. The soundtrack is still heavily influenced by electric guitars, though a lot less metal, and you’d be loath to turn the playlist of this soundtrack up to 11 in the car on the way home from the cinema. and the ending is enormously abrupt, as if they ran out of money or script pages or edit time.

Bill & Ted Face the Music isn’t the most excellent episode in the franchise: that plaudit rests securely with the original. But it’s a big improvement on the second outing, and the more thoughtful scenes – like Bill and Ted meeting their geriatric selves – will please old fans while the two families’ mad time-travelling capers will lift the fatigue of COVID-atrophied cinemagoers. We are in need of a good dose of goofy fluff to distract us from the doom and gloom of living through a pandemic, and Bill & Ted have come to the rescue for one last time.

Already out in the US, Bill & Ted Face the Music will be screened in UK and Irish cinemas from 16 September. If you enjoyed this review, why not buy me a tea ...

Les Misérables – incendiary policing stirs up fire in the modern hearth of Victor Hugo’s novel (QFT until 17 September)

The morning after French victory in the 2018 World Cup and newly transferred to the station, Stéphane Ruiz (Damien Bonnard) spends his first day in the back of the patrol car being shown the sights Montfermeil (the location of Thénardiers' inn from Victor Hugo’s eponymous novel) by ‘Pink Pig’ Chris (Alexis Manenti) and Gwada (Djebril Zonga) from the Street Crimes Unit.

Les Misérables depicts a style of policing where searches are arbitrary, and the legal basis somewhat spurious. Leaders in the local community are played off each other. This is policing without accountability and without any respect for the citizens supposedly being protected.

It’s a male tale. In one of just a few brief scenes in which women speak, it is established that Chris’ unorthodox methods are tolerated by his senior colleagues due to his legacy of getting results.

A missing circus animal sends the squad on a search for a young boy (Issa Perica) and the subsequent arrest goes ‘sour’. But when Chris realises that their ‘situation’ has been filmed from above, he goes into overdrive to cover their tracks. Along the lines of Spiral, but even more cowboy and out of control.

The early scenes gently and expertly introduce the modus operandi of the large cast of characters, each baring their imperfections like the proud scars of war. The sound of the estate provides the rich soundtrack.

The storytelling comes with a sense of intimacy. Les Misérables is personal. Director Ladj Ly grew up in Les Bosquets and documented police action and was a strong voice during the 2005 riots during where he witnessed an act of police brutality. So it’s no accident that his son, Al-Hassan Ly, appears as Buzz, the youngster who owns the drone that captures the fictional event at the film’s point of no return.

The final scene returns to the same streets and witnesses the violent consequences for all those who were complicit in the previous day’s actions and coverup. Rather than seeing the elimination of all that was bad, it demonstrates how a new generation can simply perpetuate the same behaviours of their elders.

Having stepped into the squad car along with Stéphane and seen the wrongdoing with our eyes, audiences are implicitly asked what it will take for the rules of the game to change and not just the players. The closing shot pauses to wonder if Issa has witnessed anything worthy of trust in the behaviour of Stéphane. It’s a harsh lesson from Ly that rings as true in Northern Ireland as the eastern suburbs of Paris.

Les Misérables is being screened in Queen’s Film Theatre until 17 September. If you enjoyed this review, why not buy me a tea ...

Babyteeth – well drawn characters raise film above just being another terminally ill tale (QFT until 10 September)

Every eighteen months or so, cinema seems to return to the subject of a sick young person. In Babyteeth, 16 year-old Milla (Eliza Scanlen who played Beth in Little Women) is in remission when cancer returns. With a psychiatrist in need of therapy for a father (Ben Mendelsohn) and an overly-medicated mother (Essie Davis) who hasn’t quite got over her first love, into Milla’s precarious life steps Moses (Toby Wallace), a twenty-something junkie who brings her hope and headache in equal measure.

“This is the worst possible parenting I can imagine” states Milla’s mum, summing up the two-hour film where health, time and wellbeing are also in short supply,

The narrative arc for a coming of age story about a white middle-class terminally ill teenage virgin is a well-trodden path. The more predictable moments are all there, but what makes Babyteeth stand out from the crowd is the quality of the characterisation. Milla’s purposeful wanderlust and desire for control is balanced by her dysfunctional parents and their catastrophic mental health and unravelling relationship issues. These are well drawn and complex people who draw the viewer in, wanting to find out more about what makes them tick.

There are unexpected details and lots of surprises that point to the theatrical background of the script. Screenwriter (Rita Kalnejais) and debut feature director (Shannon Murphy) know how to quickly establish scenes and create edge-of-seat moments. The strong soundtrack, used sparingly rather than continuously, hooks into the emotional baggage the characters cart around with them.

Late on, a party cleverly brings together most of the cast, though rather than neatly tying off the loose ends, it leaves them awkwardly ragged and ultimately serves only as a device to empty the house. The denouement is at first disturbing (one cinemagoer walked out of my screening) and then disappointing, until the final beach scene recovers Babyteeth’s sense of perspective.

Ultimately, the creative team replace what could have been a templated story about finding a will to live with a story of letting go, being free and helping other people towards a promised land somewhat freer of the drugs that hold them back. While parts of Babyteeth are incredibly sad – you will cry, but socially distanced seating gives you privacy! – there’s plenty of comedy as the self-absorbed figures panic while Milla sets her affairs, and everyone else’s, in order.

Babyteeth continues at Queen’s Film Theatre until 10 September. Shannon Murphy and Eliza Scanlen are definitely ones to watch in the future. If you enjoyed this review, why not buy me a tea ...