For 12 days, between October 9th and 20th, the BFI London Film Festival (LFF) returns to the British capital. This year, the event presents 255 features, shorts, series and immersive works from 80 countries, during the 12 days of the festival. This includes 112 works made by female and non-binary filmmakers – that’s nearly half of the selection. The event takes place primarily in the London flashiop venues (the BFI Southbank, and the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall), as well as supporting cinemas and nine partner venues across the UK.
Below are our top 10 picks from the programme. They are dirty movies that we watched late last year and earlier this year at Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Tallinn, Locarno, Rotterdam, San Sebastian, Raindance and many other film festival across the UK, Europe and indeed the world. They are some of the most innovative, provocative and downright filthy that we have seen this year. Of course we haven’t covered every single film in the LFF programme, so stay tuned for more dirty gems throughout the British Festival!
The 10 films below are listed in alphabetical order. Click on the title in order to accede to each individual review.
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1. All We Imagine As Light (Payal Kapadia):
The camera peers up at the star-spotted night sky filtered through the canopy of a forest. Like a painting, the light of the stars seems to fit perfectly between the trees. Then Ranabir Das’s camera repositions to a close-up of a woman’s hairline, so close one can spot dandruff, before slowly revealing the full body of the squatting woman, Anu (Divya Prabha), peeing on the forest floor. For most filmmakers, such a reveal would be either humorous or charged with an inescapable embarrassment (synonymous with the action of urination in movies). For director Payal Kapadia, in her follow-up to her 2021 quasi-documentary A Night of Knowing Nothing, the moment is both beautiful and mundane. And, by treating the female body with such unkempt humanity, All We Imagine As Light challenges mainstream depictions of desi women.
The iconoclastic women of All We Imagine As Light bludgeon the stereotypical images of Bollywood and Hollywood. Kusruti and Prabha (the actor who portrays Anu, not Prabha the character) portray their characters with mean streaks and without shying away from normal bodily functions (like peeing). The characters do not always conform to the beauty standards set by the industry, nor do they feel the need to play by the standards. Kapadia allows her women to be fully human; and if that’s a radical statement, that might say more about the state of cinema than it does about this particular film.
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Twenty-five-year old Anora (Mikey Madison) works as a pole dancer and occasional hooker in a strip joint somewhere on Long Island (New York), near the upper-class district of Brightwaters. This is where she meet 21-year-old Ivan, the selfish and reckless son of a Russian oligarch. He splashes out money with the casualness of a child sucking a lollipop. He’s insolent and puerile. He takes Anora (who prefers to be called “Ani”) to his majestic mansion overlooking the Atlantic Sea. She performs a private dance for him, and he offers her U$10,000 to spend the week together. She demands U$15,000 instead. Vanya (the Russian nickname for “Ivan”) replies: “I would have offered you $30k if you had settled for $10k”, thereby establishing that the power relations are entirely pecuniary. Money and sex are the de facto currency.
Once again, Sean baker subverts the American dream by placing the rich and traditional right next to marginalised Americans. This time he does one step further by throwing Russian culture into the picture. In Tangerine (2015), he inserts trannies a the heart of the American family on Christmas day, while impoverished single mothers experience a lacklustre existence right next to Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, in The Florida project (2017). Structurally, Anora has many similarities with Tangerine: both films have sex workers in the lead role, abundant cat fights, a tour of the urban underworld (of West Hollywood and Long Island), feral and yet adorable characters fighting for their dignity by all means available to them, and a crucial touch of empathy.
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The Grill is a very busy restaurant at Times Square. Hundreds of daily diners ensure that the kitchen staff are never bored. Chefs and waiters must work in tandem with their demands, and without procrastination. The chicken masala, the pizza and the dessert must reach the customer table promptly and in the right temperature. The staff are a combination of immigrants from peripheral capitalism (Mexico, Albania, Morocco, etc) and Americans from a poor background. The bald Anglo-Saxonic boss (Lee R. Sellars) puts his vocal cords and an infinite supply of f-words to use in order to ensure that every single employee fulfils their duties to perfection. He occasionally breaks into singing, in a bizarre performance wrapped up by the public display of his buttocks (that’s presumably his idea of workplace entertainment). Gordon Ramsay would be green with envy.
Almost entirely shot in crisp black and white, La Cocina is a delightful to watch. The monochromatic palette conveys a feeling of distance and alienation, compatible with fractured relations and fractious environment of this very undesirable workplace. Dutch shots, unusual framing (heads are sometimes cut in half), and cameras positioned behind shelves and other physical dividers help to emphasise these sensations. A breathtaking handheld take lasting approximately a quarter of an hour divides this 140-minute film roughly in two: waiters and chef scramble to fulfil their functions, completely indifferent to that fact that the kitchen floor has been flooded with water (they have no time to acknowledge the hazard, let alone question its origins).
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4. Emilia Perez (Jacques Audiard):
Manitas del Monte (Karla Sofía Gascón) is a ruthless Mexican drug lord in control of the entire synthetic drug trade of his region. He casually disposes of his enemies without wincing. He is happily married to the beautiful Jessi (Selena Gomez), with whom he has two young children. But life isn’t entirely fulfilling because he harbours a secret: he dreams of becoming a woman. He dares not share this intimate desire with anyone, particularly his family. So he kidnaps lawyer Rita (Zoe Saldaña) and persuades the disillusioned professional to arrange a sex change surgery for him abroad, and to stage his death to his family and enemies. Rita is very efficient: his “murder” is broadcast on national television.
Four years pass and Manitas returns as Emilia, once again grudgingly aided by Rita. Emilia approaches her former wife and children claiming to be a long-lost cousin of Manitas. The transformation is so extreme that not a single person realises it. Not even his wife as she touches Emilia’s face. Even audiences are briefly tricked. It takes a firm gaze into Emilia’s eyes before we realise that Emilia and Manitas are indeed the same person. One of his children notes that Emilia smells like her father, but that’s about it. Emilia can feign her auntie role undisturbed. But she wants more: she wishes to reclaim their parenthood. The only problem is that Emilia has retained a vestigial trace of toxic masculinity, and that eventually comes back to haunt her. Stay put for 130 minutes, and buckle your seatbelts for a bombastic ending.
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5. I’m Still Here (Walter Salles):
The story begins in 1970. Eunice Paiva (Fernanda Torres) is happily married to former Brazilian congressman Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello). He was ousted from Brazil’s federal Parliament after the 1964 military coup, and lived in exile for a couple of years. he then returned to his native Brazil in order to join Eunice and their five children, and stayed away from politics. The problem is that Rubens has not stayed away from his activist duties in their entirety. Unbeknownst to his family, he helps to communicate the horrors perpetrated by the government to foreign media, while also aiding friends in exile. The cost of his “subversive” behaviour is very dear. One day, several army thugs invade his house and arrest Rubens, Eunice and their second eldest daughter (the primogenit Vera was sent to London a few months earlier, precisely because her parents feared that she could become involved in political activism). Mother and daughter are tortured in a secret location. They return home a few days later, yet there is no sign of daddy.
Torres deliver a heart-wrenching performance as a woman desperate to save her husband, while also shielding her five children from the shocking and painful truth. This very strong female character holds herself together in an attempt to craft a sense of relative normality in the house. Music and joy gradually seep back into their lives as they move to Sao Paulo. Eunice becomes a human rights lawyer and devotes her life to investigating the actions of the regime, and to protecting those failed by their own nation. The victims and their perpetrators freely roam the streets of the largest country of Latin America as I write this. I’m Still Here is a cinematic tour-de-force and also a powerful weapon for change in Brazilian politics. There can be no real change and democracy until the sadistic criminals of the past have been duly punished.
I’m Still Here is pictured at the top of this article.
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6. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (Rungano Nyoni):
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl is largely centred on Shula (Susan Chardy), who is forced to subscribe to tradition and mourn for an uncle who caused her personal harm. She does what she can to appease her family – a line of aunties stand outside her door – but the guilt that causes her to remember a video from her childhood, an educational programme on African animals a la guinea fowls, is also the fuel that causes her to sympathise with Uncle Fred’s widow; a young woman many of her in-laws blame for the sudden death of her husband.
The material is bold, brash and inventive. It takes a fine actress to grasp the fine nuances – the family is aware of Uncle Fred’s “indiscretions”, but choose to look the other way during his funeral. Chardy is more than capable of rising to the challenge. Shula cloaks herself in bitterness, boredom and ennui, taking the time out of her busy schedule to collect her cousin Bupe, a young, angsty adolescent who is in no state to join her clan in sorrow (for there is much howling at the domicile). Shula discovers a video of a relative confessing to their uncle’s “recreational activities”, which has been felt by many women in the dynasty. Fuelled by indignation, Shula decides to take action, only to discover that her parents want no part in her crusade.
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7. On Falling (Laura Carreira):
Portuguese immigrant Aurora (Joana Santos) works is a drab warehouse somewhere in cold and grey Scotland. Her job consists of fours movements repeated ad infinitum: she scans a shelf, she then scans an item on the shelf, places the item on a trolley, and then finally scans the trolley. She moves forward to the next shelf and does exactly the same. The purpose of this procedure is never entirely clear. Perhaps not even Aurora herself understands the machinations of the technology behind her soul-destroyingly monotonous task. It doesn’t matter. As long as she carry on undaunted, everything else is fine.
Aurora is your average 30-something woman. She is neither stupid nor unpleasant. She speaks good English and possesses satisfactory social skills. It is never clear why she moved to the UK, and how she ended up trapped in the unforgiving gig economy. Despite her perceptible loneliness and alienation, she exhibits no desire to break away from the system. She is comfortably stuck in a rut. A box rolling on a conveyor belt without moving forward neatly symbolises her work and her predicament: listless, thankless and inescapable. A modern-day Sisyphus, the boulder replaced with a much smaller, lighter and more sophisticated handheld scan machine. On Falling is a palpably real movie. It neither romanticises nor fetishises its protagonist. And it never slips into didacticism. Aurora’s quiet tragedy is an all-too-familiar one, and precisely for that reason it’s particularly scary. A highly humanistic little film, with a very subtle and yet profoundly touching denouement. One that will stay with you for some time.
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8. One to One: John and Yoko (XX):
This isn’t just a film about the late Beatle and the Japanese-born performance artist, who once shared a bed and disseminated a message of “peace and love” to the globe. One to One is also a vibrant panorama of the United States in the years of 1972 and 1973, when the couple left John’s native Britain in favour of New York. From the comfort of their relatively small and cosy rooftop flat in Greenwich Village, they watch American television. That’s the communication vehicle that gripped a nation and shaped an entire era. The media also provides most of the the footage, the aesthetic and the texture of his loud and colourful doc.
The amount and the diversity of the footage obtained is genuinely impressive, presumably the outcome of very thorough archive research. And undoubtedly an exorbitant rights clearance. Even more significant is the assembling of the images. One to One is a masterclass in editing and montage. It smoothly navigates through different vehicles, textures and topics – in no chronological and topical order – to outstanding results. There is no voiceover, and special effects are kept to a bare minimum, instead allowing the images to speak for themselves. A fitting tribute to two authentic revolutionaries, and a turbulent period that helped to shaped the anxieties and the aspirations of countless modern-day artists.
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9. The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mohamed Rasoulof);
With a duration of nearly three hours, and not a single redundant minute, this masterpiece of Iranian cinema boasts the psychological complexity of Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), the moral density of Farhadi’s A Separation 2011) and the political audacity of Rasoulof’s own Evil Does Not Exist (which won the Golden Bear four years ago, and which I count amongst the top 10 films of my life). There is even a gentle touch of Hitchcockian action and suspense in the adrenaline-inducing final third of the story. The unequivocal anti-authoritarian message earned Rasoulof an eight-year jail sentence, the longest one ever imposed on a filmmaker in the history of the Asian country. He he fled his home ation on the eve of the Festival de Cannes.
Iman (Missagh Zareh) is a devoted husband and father, and a loyal public servant. He loves his wife Najmeh (Soheila Golestani) and their two daughters, Reznan (Mahsa Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki). He has received a promotion that puts him one step away from becoming a judge. This means that their family are within touching distance of an official government residence, and of enjoying privileges that very few Iranians have. But that comes at a price. Iman is asked to endorse a death indictment, which his predecessor refused to sign off. He hesitates, only to find out that his entire career would be compromised should he fail to abide. He soon allows his ambitions prevail above his principles and values. This is a movie about the dangerous allure of authoritarianism, and how we casually cross the line between complicity and dissent (these apparent antonyms are in reality closely associated). This does not mean that Rasoulof promotes complacence. Quite the opposite. This is a literal call to action. Evil does exist, and you must fight it by all means available. This may include armed struggle. The urgency and the universality of this film is self-evident.
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10. Who do I Belong To (Meryem Joobuer):
Aicha (Salha Nasraoui), her husband Brahim (Mohamed Grayaâ) and their young son Adam (Rayene Mechergui) live in a small coastal community in Northern Tunisia surrounded by dunes, sandwiched between the arid Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean sea. They inhabit a precarious shack and herd sheep. Their community isn’t particularly close-knit. They barely see their neighbours, and enjoy a mostly nondescript existence. Such ordinariness allows them to shelter their older son Mehdi (Malek Mechergui) and his pregnant wife Reem (Dea Liane), who have just returned from Syria. The gesture could land the entire family in jail. That’s because Mehdi and his brother Amine (who is now presumably dead) joined Isis of their own volition. The government sees them as terrorists, and a threat to national security.
Who Do I Belong Too is a movie doused in mystery and beauty. The camera is often handheld and gently shaky, crafting a moderate sense of tension and uncertainty. The focus is very shallow, resulting in blurry, barely discernible silhouettes and dreamy landscapes in the background. The performances are quietly superb: Nasraoui excels as a mother overcome with anguish, while Grayaâ is a hard-headed yet sensitive father prepared to take hard decisions in order to vouch for his family security. The Mecherguis are two loving brothers tragically losing their fraternal connection, and the most vulnerable characters in the film (their thick eyebrows, heavily freckled faces and their common surname suggest that they are real-life siblings). But it is Liane’s astoundingly beautiful and expressive eyes who communicate the most. Her firm gaze evokes both fear and sympathy, while keeping the dark secrets of her soul securely hidden under the ruband. The developments are subtle and slow, however the film never overstays its relatively long duration of 120 minutes.
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