REVIEW: Cinema Release: Incendies

Film: Incendies
Year of production: 2010
UK Release date: 24th June 2011
Distributor: Trinity
Certificate: 15
Running time: 132 mins
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Starring: Lubna Azabal, Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin, Maxim Gaudette, Rémy Girard, Abdelghafour Elaaziz
Genre: Drama/Mystery/War
Format: Cinema
Country of Production: Canada/France
Language: French/Arabic/English

Review by: Natalie Meziani

Adapted from the play ‘Scorched’ by Wajdi Mouawad, Incendies has been brought to the screen by Québécoise director Denis Villeneuve in this harrowing full-length feature. The film battles its way through a powerful shower of revelations in order to explore the fruitful life of Nawal Marwan, as her twin children return to their Arabic homeland to fulfil her dying wish.

Incendies begins with Canadian twins Simon and Jeanne receiving the will of their mother, Nawal, providing them with some bizarre burial instructions and a pair of unopened envelopes for them to deliver. Nawal asks the twins to return to her native soil in search of a father they had believed to be dead and a brother they didn’t know existed in order to deliver one letter to each. It is only then that she may be buried properly, for without this final act she claims that she is not worthy of the privilege of a grave.

In order to carry out their search, the twins are obliged to learn the facts of their mother’s past by exploring the place where she was brought up. Simon is initially reluctant to participate, but Jeanne immediately finds herself in the Middle East in search of her mother’s truth. This facilitates the revelation of crucial moments in Nawal’s life which they could never have even dreamt, painting a detailed and painful picture in order to gradually understand how to find their father and brother.

The twins soon realise that they do not know their mother at all. The events which she has endured have been completely buried during her time in Canada. We progressively construct her life through largely horrific chronological flashbacks, including Nawal giving birth after being raped during her 15-year imprisonment for shooting a political leader. The final scene surpasses the many shocking events witnessed during Nawal’s life, taking the audience miles past the point of comfortable fiction, but definitely into the territory of a masterpiece...


It is increasingly rare that visual art can have such a large part in the creation of emotion, and cinematographer André Turpin plays a brilliant role in executing this. The muted colour used in the depiction of Nawal’s life adds a subtle beauty to her horrendous past; creating a tone of sadness in the fact that such courage could ever exist. The transitions from present activity to flashbacks of Nawal’s life are allocated chapter headings, slammed onto the screen in a stark red lettering which further adds to the film’s strong character.

The political content implies that Nawal’s experiences occur in Lebanon, although no country is ever named. This suggests that the film is making a sweeping statement about the difficulties of war-infused life rather than making a point about Lebanese history, allowing Incendies the ability to uphold a widespread poignancy. This universal appeal undoubtedly places Villeneuve amongst the best of world-class film directors.

Villeneuve regularly uses still shots filled with crushing silence, which are almost necessary in allowing the viewer to digest each morsel of devastation before the next scene takes place. The use of Radiohead in the soundtrack haunts the screen and enhances the story’s distress, which is particularly well-placed in the opening scene. Such a huge contemporary band also links Incendies to the present era, giving us a larger capacity to be empathetically shocked.

The shattering pain of Nawal is spoken through the eyes of Lubna Azabal in some of the most moving acting to grace Canadian cinema; her manipulation of each individual trauma is exquisite. Maxim Gaudette plays the lesser tolerant twin Simon, while Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin is the more determined Jeanne. The two create a delicately believable onscreen sibling chemistry, allowing the story to strike a chord in the audience’s hearts. Even minor characters in Incendies are incredibly apt at building emotion within scenes; there is such raw and realistic passion present in all the performances that one could easily assume they are acting out a true story based on themselves. The film’s biggest punch is based on an outlandish coincidence, and yet its creditability is not tainted thanks to the perfection presented by the script and acting.


Incendies has an abundance of awards under its belt and a Best Foreign Language Oscar nomination. This comes as no surprise. The film follows an explosive path of grandeur; it is dramatic, it is overstated, and it is drawn out. But the entire package is of such a high standard that it is necessary in all its excess – the austere visual and emotional content is of the highest calibre. NM 

REVIEW: DVD Release: Benda Bilili!

Film: Benda Bilili!
Year of production: 2010
UK Release date: 16th May 2011
Distributor: Trinity
Certificate: 12
Running time: 86 mins
Director: Renaud Barret & Florent de La Tullaye
Genre: Documentary
Format: DVD
Country of Production: Democratic Republic of the Congo/France
Language: Lingala/French

Review by: Rob Ward

Staff Benda Bilili were a sensational hit at international music festival WOMAD in 2010 and have scooped up world music prizes at festivals and shows across Europe. But their success did not come easily. Benda Bilili! charts their remarkable journey from homelessness on the streets of Kinshasa, Congo to the release of their first album and subsequent tour. What makes their journey still more remarkable is that the majority of the group are paraplegic.

Renault Barret and Florent de La Tullaye’s documentary charts the journey taken by the group from their rehearsals in Kinshasa zoo through the making of their album Tres Tres Fort, the recruitment of charismatic frontman Roger and their journey through Europe.

Originally conceived as a video-blog to accompany the record, the various setbacks and crisis’s which beset the project meant that the increasingly dramatic narrative and charismatic cast of characters demanded it be turned into a feature length release…


The film opens with the group living a hand-to-mouth existence in a cramped and ramshackle shelter. Struck with polio, many of them are crippled from the waist down: their withered limbs hang limp beneath their bodies. It’s immediately apparent, however, that their physical disabilities will not handicap them: the opening scene is a joyous dance by a smiling man carrying all his weight on his flip-flop clad hands. It’s an energetic opening and a masterful piece of editing – the audience is informed from the outset that this is a documentary which will see obstacles overcome by an inspiring cast.

Chief among these is Papa Ricky, band leader and surrogate father. He’s a thoroughly engaging presence. Gentle and sweet voiced, yet cynical and hard edged. His devotion to his band is absolute – at various points he puts them ahead of his family – but only as he sees the group as offering hope and salvation to so many. His family will hopefully benefit, too, from the ‘dough’ which eventually rolls in through royalties. He’s afforded respect by all those around him – perhaps due to the protective net he casts around those closest to him. When he is crossed by a ‘villager’ who stares at the camera crew, they are given a fearful tongue lashing. It’s a powerful and unexpected display of his personality and one the camera crew would have been delighted to have captured.

Despite the fatherly affections of Ricky, it’s clear that the members of Staff Benda Bilili are more than capable of self-sufficiency. Hand-pedalling around Kinshasa on their modified tricycles, they look like distant cousins of Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda’s Easy Riders. Their resilience and ability to find joy in their difficult lives is truly inspirational. A wonderful illustration of this occurs at a ‘football’ match played between fellow polio sufferers. Unable to use their legs, they slalom around the dusty pitch on their hands, colliding at speed with one another yet demonstrating enormous skill. When a goal is scored with an acrobatic flying volley, a spontaneous pitch invasion occurs. It’s a lovely moment, as daily hardship is forgotten in an outpouring of unbridled joy.

In the main, Barret and de La Tullaye’s style is to remain as invisible as possible. They stay away from the action and offer little in the way of exposition. A brief voiceover explains their role as facilitators and financers, but, otherwise, they are not seen or heard. This hands-off approach serves the piece very well, as the inhabitants of Kinshasa are more than capable of making their thoughts and feelings known - and the action is more than capable of speaking for itself.

The directors do, sadly, take a couple of wrong turns. There are two scenes in the documentary which feel rather contrived. The first, a discussion of religion and the role of Adam and Eve in the creation of sin seems unlikely between the teenage protagonists and has a whiff of political agenda about it. Still more staged is a conversation between two youngsters about Europe. Although it contains some poetic ideas and imagery – not least comparing being stuck in Congo with being like caged birds – it jars badly. The film makes its point extremely eloquently without needing to resort to cheap (and obvious) fakery like this.

Letting the action speaks for itself certainly serves Barret and de La Tullaye well in the film’s most poignant scene. With the band away from home recording their album, their shelter burns to the ground. Nothing can be saved. Letting the stark truth linger as they record a phone-call between Ricky and his wife is understated filmmaking at its best. And Ricky’s stoic reaction is typical of a man with an utter conviction in the redemptive power of the music he creates.

The only other character who can rival Ricky in the charisma stakes is Roger. Discovered aged 12, he grows up on screen over the course of the five years it took to film Benda Bilili! and his journey is the most remarkable of all. He was discovered by the directors playing his santonge: an instrument devised by Roger himself, consisting of an empty tin can, a wooden handle and a guitar string. It’s capable of an amazing range of tones and Roger is a virtuoso at playing it. Charting Roger’s adolescence is arguably the filmmaker’s greatest achievement. The only time they refer back to the past is when they cut a scene of the 12-year-old Roger into later footage. It’s a brilliantly effective way of showing exactly how far he’s come from precocious child to Hendrix-aping frontman.

Having being filmed over such a long period of time, it’s possible to see and hear the maturing of Staff Benda Bilili very clearly. As well as Roger growing up in front of the camera, the band’s music improves noticeably over the length of the documentary. Their hilarious, perennially stoned and thoroughly uplifting journey into the unknown world of Europe is wonderfully documented and punctuated by powerful and polished performances in front of adoring crowds - and the Argentinean ambassador.


Benda Bilili! is a thoroughly uplifting documentary about an inspirational group of people who’ve transcended disability, poverty and hardship to triumph against the odds. It’s telling that this charismatic and charming group grabbed the attention of the directors from the outset and practically forced them to make this wonderful film. Filled with brilliant music and colourful characters, it’s a remarkable, life-affirming and uplifting. RW

REVIEW: DVD Release: Enter The Void

Film: Enter The Void
Year of production: 2009
UK Release date: 25th April 2011
Distributor: Trinity/eOne
Certificate: 18
Running time: 142 mins
Director: Gaspar Noé
Starring: Natheniel Brown, Paz de la Huerta, Cyril Roy, Masato Tanno, Olly Alexander
Genre: Drama/Thriller
Format: DVD
Country of Production: France/Germany/Italy/Canada
Language: English/Japanese

After the visceral brutality and sexual violence of Irreversible, Gaspar Noe has carved a niche for himself as a maverick with a singular artistic vision – and as a filmmaker who is utterly unafraid of controversy. Enter The Void is no exception, charting drug-use, death and explicit sex in a lurid explosion of neon, banging beats and nausea-inducing camera work.

Telling the tale of unwitting Tokyo drug dealer Oscar (Nathaniel Brown), Noe places the audience smack in the middle of the action. Making a delivery, Oscar is killed within minutes of the opening. His soul hovers momentarily over his corpse, as it takes in the ensuing carnage, and then moves away from reality and into the metaphysical world as it explores Oscar’s life, travelling the space and time on the journey which has ultimately ended in his untimely demise – and will conclude with his inevitable reawakening…


Blasting onto the screen, the movie opens with a dazzling title sequence. It’s a hyperkinetic surge of colourful graphics and throbbing techno which burns the cast and crew’s names onto the audience’s retinas. From the outset it’s clear that Noe’s intent is to make a striking impact – and he certainly does.

Rather than continuing in this garish and cartoonish vein, however, the opening scene moves away from vibrancy and colour into a muted colour palate and a more sedate pace. Placing the audience squarely in the scene, Noe utilises a first-person perspective as the world is seen through Oscar’s eyes. He makes small talk with his sister Linda (Paz de la Huerta), smokes drugs and talks Buddhism with a friend. It’s dreamy, hazy and, at times, uncomfortable viewing – the swirling, see-sawing motion of the camera induces a motion sickness which is an entirely deliberate ploy to draw the audience quickly into Oscar’s stoned state of mind.

But just as quickly as you become accustomed to Oscar’s worldview, his perspective is transformed: he’s shot dead by police. As his soul leaves his body, it is transported above the action, and from here it takes on a new life, as it swoops and soars above the city. Brilliant camera work – particularly airborne tracking shots above Tokyo - and some fantastic editing allow Oscar’s soul o glide through the city and streets, and pass through walls and ceilings as he observes his stripper sister having sex with her lover, his own corpse being moved by police and his friend Alex (Cyril Roy) distraught at what has happened. It’s thrillingly voyeuristic stuff.

Sadly what follows this dreamy, exhilarating opening is not nearly as creative or as interesting. Instead we revisit Oscar's life via a montage of interlinked flashback sequences. Like the rest of Enter The Void, they are slightly surreal, but their style is much more prosaic and predictable. Despite that, Noe still manages to create some arresting visual images and some interesting thematic ideas. But above all else, what shines through is some sloppy symbolism and some shoddy acting.

Initially the flashback sequences looks at Oscar's relationship with his sister. Mixing and merging scenes of their childhood and adolescence with scenes of their adult lives introduces, it creates the idea of a creepily incestuous relationship. Some overwrought and clumsy scenes of the siblings kissing, bathing and swimming with their mother are cut with images of Linda breastfeeding. The characters (and their ages) become interchangeable and it's, quite frankly, absurd.

Given his ubiquitous presence throughout this sequence, it's sad to find that Nathaniel Brown as Oscar is simply not an actor cut out to carry a film. He's wooden, to say the least, and his slacker accent and low key voice are almost lost in the aural wall which Noe builds around his action. Most of the performances are mannered to say the least. Paz de la Huerta pitches Linda somewhere between childhood naivety and permanently high in a performance which grates slightly. Arguably the best of the bunch is Cyril Roy as Oscar’s artist friend Alex - he at least sounds a note of realism.

With such inconsequential and irritating characters, the narrative also needs to be stronger to carry the film. The recurring motif of The Tibetan Book of the Dead hints clunkily and clumsily at exactly where the plot is going. There was simply no need to paint-by-numbers for an audience who would have been well capable of discerning the plot’s deeper meanings without signposting them so obviously.

It’s left to a series of set pieces to provide what remains of interest as the storyline becomes increasingly uninteresting and domesticated in the aftermath of Oscar’s death. These set-pieces invariably centre on female nudity – and some of them are more original than others. A graphically seedy orgy certainly pales into insignificance compared to a horrific scene in a hospital operating theatre and the never-before-seen vaginal penetration shot which features in one scene. Whether this intimate camera work constitutes good cinema or not is highly debatable. But it’s certainly original – and provides a fitting climax.


Enter The Void is beautifully, skilfully and inventively crafted. But it is a triumph of style over substance. All the clever camerawork and amazing editing in the world cannot save the film from its plodding plot, overwrought symbolism and unconvincing acting. There’s a good movie in here somewhere, but Gasper Noe hasn’t made it yet. RW

NEWS: Cinema Release: Benda Bilili!

Benda Bilili! is a real-life world music fairytale, lifting the lid on the Congolese music scene to reveal the incredible true story behind Kinshasa’s ghetto stars; Staff Benda Bilili, the world music sensation who have exploded onto the scene with their critically acclaimed debut album, ‘Tres, Tres, Fort’, and electric performances at Glastonbury and WOMAD and festivals world-wide. Staff Benda Bilili’s distinct musical style is a seductive mix of Congolese rumba, James Brown-esque funk, Cuban mambo, ancestral trance and Jimi Hendrix-esque flourishes from Roger Landu, the former street kid virtuoso.

Ricky has a dream: to make Staff Benda Bilili the best band in Congo Kinshasa. Roger, a street child, more than ever wants to join these stars of the ghetto, who get around in customized tricycles.

Together, they must avoid the pitfalls of the street, stay united and find the force to hope in music.

Opening Directors Fortnight at Cannes this year, Renaud Barret and Florent de la Tullaye’s uplifting film is a frank and intimate portrait of the band, their musical energy and social observation of the realities of life in the Congo. Hotly tipped to be the next Buena Vista Social Club, Benda Bilili! Is a rare cinematic discovery, a powerful and inspirational film that follows the extraordinary journey of the band over the course of six years, from when we first encounter them performing and living on the streets of Kinshasa to recording their acclaimed debut album and headlining at international music festivals.

Benda Bilili! is the story of a dream become reality; a tale of triumph over adversity which embraces the band’s creed; to be true to oneself, take pride, be strong, and never give up.

Film: Benda Bilili!
Release date: 18th March 2011
Certificate: PG
Running time: 86 mins
Director: Renaud Barret & Florent de La Tullaye
Starring: Maria Barli Djongo, Renaud Barret, Cubain Kabeya, Vincent Kenis, Paulin Kiara-Maigi
Genre: Documentary
Studio: Trinity
Format: Cinema
Country: Democratic Republic of the Congo/France

REVIEW: DVD Release: Involuntary

Film: Involuntary
Release date: 28th February 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 98 mins
Director: Ruben Östlund
Starring: Villmar Björkman, Linnea Cart-Lamy, Leif Edlund, Sara Eriksson, Lola Ewerlund
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Studio: Trinity
Format: DVD
Country: Sweden

Sweden's official submission for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2010 Academy Awards, and an award winner at various international film festivals, Involuntary tells five parallel stories that take place in and around the suburbs of Gothenburg. Intercutting between the five different stories, director Ruben Ostlund takes an unflinching, unsentimental look at how group dynamics impact on human behaviour.

Involuntary begins as it ends, with the view from the front of a vehicle driving through city streets at night. Only at the end of the film do we realise that the view is from an ambulance transporting a man to hospital. The man is Villmar, a grandfather who earlier in the evening refused professional medical attention after he was injured by a firework that exploded in his face at a birthday party.

Very different to the stoic Villmar are Linnea and Sara, two giggly teenage girls who take pictures of themselves posing together as models and get drunk with their friends, leading to Linnea passing out and being abandoned by the side of a road. Alcohol is also an important ingredient in the story of a group of thirty-something men holidaying in the country, one of whom is sexually assaulted in a prank gone too far.

In contrast, the mood is as sober as it is sombre in the story of a teacher who feels she is being ostracised by her peers after she accuses an older male colleague of abusing a pupil, and in the tale of a middle-aged actress on a coach trip who lets a young boy take the blame after she accidentally breaks a curtain rod in the on-board toilet…


The individual stories may, on the surface, sound as though they’re lacking in dramatic tension, but the way Ostlund weaves them together gives Involuntary an intriguing, surprisingly absorbing quality. Not a lot happens, but it happens in such a way that issues of group identity and behaviour are slyly, fascinatingly dissected.

Comparisons have been made to Michael Haneke, but while Ostlund shares something of Haneke’s detached, unsentimental approach, his narratives are, for better or worse, clearer cut and more obviously resolved. The Swede has also injected Involuntary with a streak of deadpan humour that adds a touch of warmth where Haneke would probably opt for an icier, more solemn feel.

The humour in Involuntary is hardly laugh-out-loud funny, but it does raise the odd knowing smile, and serves the film’s overall theme well. The discomfort of the teacher who feels that that her colleagues are marginalising her is contrasted against her earlier attempts to teach a group of pre-schoolers that submitting to peer pressure is wrong, and on the coach trip the solitary actress has to cope with a talkative fan who pesters her incessantly.

There is also a certain wry humour in the way that Ostlund deliberately sets out to tell five separate stories that do not converge or intersect at any point. If Involuntary was a Hollywood film, the five separate stories would most likely overlap at some point, but the only link in Ostlund’s film is the way the characters in each of the five stories are affected by the groups they are a part of.

Some viewers will enjoy this approach, while others may just find it alienating. Similarly, Ostlund’s use of long takes and unusual camera angles and positions will not be to everybody’s taste. Individual scenes were apparently painstakingly rehearsed and then shot uninterrupted, with Ostlund filming as many as twenty takes of each scene before achieving what he was looking for. Maria Lundqvist is the only well known actor in the film, but the entire cast deliver exceptional, highly naturalistic performances.

The results often feel more like a documentary than a work of fiction, but Ostlund counters this by placing his camera in unusual positions: at one point at floor level so that we see only the lower limbs and feet of the characters, and in another scene facing a car door so that we watch the reflections of men talking. Ostlund also allows the camera to film when there is very little movement, and, at times, his visual approach seems closer to contemporary art photography than filmmaking.

The overall effect is a highly distinctive film that some viewers will find poignant and quietly entrancing for the same reasons that others will find it obtuse and uneventful. Like a William Eggleston photograph, Involuntary has a low-key, quotidian charm that is refreshingly lacking in melodrama and hyperbole.


Involuntary offers an absorbing and insightful look at how different individuals abandon free will in the face of peer pressure, and is filmed in such a way as to encourage viewers to use their own free will and imagination to interpret events that unfold. JG

NEWS: DVD Release: Involuntary

Ruben Ostlund writes and directs this Swedish comedy drama exploring the nature of group behaviour and peer pressure through various intertwining storylines.

Birthday boy Villmar (Villmar Bjorkman) is injured by a firework but refuses to let the incident ruin his party; Leffe (Leif Edlund Johansson) and his friends go a bit too far in a drunken prank; two teenage schoolgirls get into trouble after dressing up and posing for a sexy photo shoot; and a teacher delivers a lesson on the power of peer pressure which cites something uncomfortably close to home as its example.

Film: Involuntary
Release date: 28th February 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 98 mins
Director: Ruben Östlund
Starring: Villmar Björkman, Linnea Cart-Lamy, Leif Edlund, Sara Eriksson, Lola Ewerlund
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Studio: Trinity
Format: DVD
Country: Sweden

REVIEW: DVD Release: Import Export

Film: Import Export
Release date: 26th January 2009
Certificate: 18
Running time: 135 mins
Director: Ulrich Seidl
Starring: Ekateryna Rak, Lidiya Oleksandrivna Savka, Natalya Baranova, Paul Hofmann, Michael Thomas
Genre: Drama
Studio: Trinity
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: Austria/France/Germany

Legendary director Werner Herzog once described Ulrich Seidl’s films as the “closest thing to a vision of hell” he has seen, and nowhere is this description more apt than in Import Export. However, this “vision of hell” is also very real - this is contemporary Europe.

Import Export is Seidl’s bold critique of contemporary Europe, specifically, power relations between the east and the west. Olga (Ekateryna Rak) is a young mother from the Ukraine, who, after losing her job as a paediatric nurse, briefly and unsuccessfully works in the webcam porn industry before deciding to leave her young child and travel west to Austria in search of economic stability. Despite her professional status, she must endure a range of menial jobs, such as working as a cleaner in a geriatric hospital.

Paul (Paul Hofmann) is young and unemployed. He is also owes money to various local gang members. Desperate to escape, he travels from Austria to the Ukraine with his stepfather, Michael (Michael Thomas), with the hope of selling slot machines…


The distinction between east and west is clear throughout the film. Olga’s life in the Ukraine is blighted by poverty. This is reflected in the opening scene in which Olga is walking across a snow-covered field as the wind howls all around her. Dressed in a white fur coat, the back of which is almost wholly covered by her long blonde hair, she is almost invisible within this barren landscape; almost insignificant. By contrast, the west is defined by capitalism. This is appalling apparent within the geriatric hospital where Olga works. Rows of elderly people are confined in cots, unable to communicate, and rendered as helpless as babies as they wait for a nurse to change their ‘diapers’. Within capitalism, those who are unable to contribute to the buying and selling of goods are a burden, devoid of status and a voice.

Clearly, within the film, as with capitalism, money equals power. Not only does the film suggest that money and power go hand-in-hand, but it also suggests that the greatest commodity is sex. This is made explicit during a scene in which Michael brings a Ukrainian prostitute to his hotel room, telling Paul, “Let me show you the power of money.” In arguably the most horrendous scene in contemporary European cinema, Michael exploits the prostitute’s lack of understanding by forcing her to complete a series of degrading acts. The scene is unashamedly voyeuristic, as the girl is objectified by both the characters and the camera as her naked body is filmed in sustained long shots. In addition to being objectified, she is also dehumanised, as she is forced to crawl around on the floor like a dog. It is unbearable to watch - and yet impossible to look away from.

Yet this is exactly what Seidl sets out to achieve: to make people sit up and take notice. An accomplished documentary maker, Seidl aims to reflect the reality of contemporary life - an objective that is embodied within the film’s naturalistic aesthetics. Elongated shots of white-washed walls and grimy hotel rooms place the focus firmly on the characters, and contribute to the sense of bleakness that pervades the film. Sadly, at times, these documentary-like shots can feel too long, and serve only to disengage the viewer.

The performances are also remarkably naturalistic due to Seidl’s constant desire to work with non-professional actors. Both Rak and Hofmann had never acted prior to filming, and both had led very similar lives to those of their characters, all of which serves to enhance the credibility of the film and make it more compelling.

Nevertheless, Seidl’s insistence on using non-professional actors also raises some worrying questions. The scenes in the geriatric hospital are often incredibly distressing; largely due to the fact Seidl filmed genuine patients, many of whom had dementia. Therefore, it is impossible not to wonder just how much informed consent was given prior filming. Similarly, it has been well-documented that Seidl employed a real prostitute to perform in the film, which begs the question: to what extent did Seidl contribute to the very exploitation that the film seeks to criticise?


Import Export is a stark and shocking film that is simultaneously captivating and horrifying. It offers a searing indictment of contemporary Europe, particularly the exploitation of the east by the capitalist west through a series of highly naturalistic performances. However, it is impossible to ignore the growing sense of unease that arises from watching vulnerable non-actors participate in such a relentlessly intense film. In capitalism, everything has a price, and Import Export forces the viewer to question exactly what price was paid in the pursuit of realism? SH

REVIEW: Cinema Release: Involuntary

Film: Involuntary
Release date: 29th October 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 98 mins
Director: Ruben Östlund
Starring: Villmar Björkman, Linnea Cart-Lamy, Leif Edlund, Sara Eriksson, Lola Ewerlund
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Studio: Trinity
Format: Cinema
Country: Sweden

Sweden’s entry for the 2010 Academy Awards, and a multi-award winner/festival favourite besides, Ruben Ostlund’s Involuntary takes familiar situations from everyday life to look at how a group dynamic can influence the choice and actions of an individual.

The film sees us following five unrelated stories intermittently.

An accident with a firework upsets the celebrations at a birthday party, with the injured, elderly host unwilling to attend hospital or receive medical examination, fearing he will upset the shindig for the attendees.

A bus trip goes off track when the driver refuses to continue the journey after discovering the curtain rail in the vehicle’s toilet has been damaged, and nobody is willing to take responsibility – although he suspects the group of foul-mouthed teenagers who have been fooling around at the back.

Two young girls, who love to pose together for sexy photos on their web cam, get wasted with their friends. However, one of them is left lying unconscious and alone when the group scarper having been confronted by a motorist whose car has been damaged by their immature antics.

A virtuous school teacher takes umbrage with the teaching methods and attitudes of her fellow educators, and takes her complaints against one even further after he physically reprimands a pupil.

A drunken all-male reunion takes an uncomfortable turn when a misbehaving prankster urges his fellow revellers to hold down one of their ‘friends’ as he performs a sexual act on him….


Ruben Ostlund’s concept, running across a number of unrelated stories - which we cut in and out of throughout – may have allowed him more possibilities to make his point, but the lack of one clear narrative, or a protagonist to follow is its biggest failing. Wanting the viewer to work is one thing, but you have to give them something to work with (unfortunately, his less is more approach to filming didn’t apply across the board).

Some of the best comedy derives from the humdrum/over familiarity of our everyday lives – and the director creates a number of identifiable scenarios within scenarios, and awkward situations that should be primed to have viewers squirming and chuckling with embarrassment and guilt (how often have you kept silent rather than admit your guilt over a trivial matter, for example?). The Office, and its star Ricky Gervais, became huge for doing just that. Unfortunately, we are never able to get to know any of the key characters here, no empathy built before we are thrown straight into their own personal disaster or events that already nark us in our own lives - and we’d rather not relive – before we are taken back out of the situation just as quickly.

It is hampered further by the director’s filming technique. It’s rare the camera will focus on a person’s face as they deliver dialogue, and once we cut to one of the stories, the camera stays fixed throughout, either at a distance, obstructed or focussed away from the where the action is taking place. It’s an interesting idea, as if we are voyeuristically listening in, but any initial intrigue soon gives way to annoyance – like being forced to listen in to a loud, inane conversation, or subjected to the behaviour of drunken youths on public transport (one of the scenarios in fact played out in this film).

It’s a shame because there was potential to provoke – the woman who is ostracised for reporting the abusive techniques employed by a fellow teacher, or the coach driver finally losing patience with his disrespectful travellers - but the director’s two key techniques, intended to disorientate the viewer and give us a distant, non-judgemental take on these events ultimately leaves us not caring as we deal with the aftermath of the five key events, and what are clever developments and reveals.

You can’t criticise the performances of those involved – although we barely see the party host or the bus driver – especially the two girls, Linnea (Linnea Cart-Lamy) and Sara (Sara Eriksson – all actors retain their real first name), who are believable as the conceited teenagers pushing their luck. The scene where the mother berates them after they are fortunate Linnea wasn’t picked up by a “sicko or paedophile” will resonate with many - both sit glumly, clearly holding back a smirk as the mother’s words go over their heads.


Had the director given more time to fleshing out the characters and stories (definitely achievable given the running length – though, he should have cut one or two of the stories out completely) and less on patting himself on the back for his unconventional framing method, this would have been a worthwhile exercise. Unfortunately, it’s an arduous task to sit through until the end despite the universally excellent performances. DH

TRAILER: Cinema Release: Involuntary

Film: Involuntary

NEWS: Cinema Release: Involuntary

It’s almost summer in Sweden and minor indiscretions and misbehaviour abound.

Leffe likes to show off for his friends and play salacious pranks, especially when he’s drinking. Meanwhile, a righteous grade-school teacher doesn’t know where to draw the line: she insists her fellow educators need a bit of instruction. Then there are two young teenage girls who like to pose for sexy photos and to party, but one night in a park, a complete stranger finds one of the girls passed out drunk.

A humorous look at lessons to learn, lectures to give and lines not to cross.

Film: Involuntary
Release date: 29th October 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 98 mins
Director: Ruben Östlund
Starring: Villmar Björkman, Linnea Cart-Lamy, Leif Edlund, Sara Eriksson, Lola Ewerlund
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Studio: Trinity
Format: Cinema
Country: Sweden

REVIEW: Cinema Release: Enter The Void

Film: Enter The Void
Release date: 24th September 2010
Certificate: 18
Running time: 160 mins
Director: Gaspar Noe
Starring: Nathaniel Brown, Paz de la Huerta, Cyril Roy, Olly Alexander, Masato Tanno
Genre: Drama
Studio: Trinity
Format: Cinema
Country: France/Italy/Germany

After the controversy which surrounded Gaspar Noe’s second feature film Irreversible, it is fair to say that anticipation has been high for the French/Argentine auteur’s latest offering Enter The Void. Billed by Noe as a “psychedelic melodrama,” and with critical comparisons to Kubrick’s 2001:A Space Odyssey, there’s been an eager sense of excitement for the film’s release.

On his way to deliver a package of drugs to a friend, protagonist Oscar is shot by the Tokyo police in a nightclub toilet and dies. His soul leaves his body and flies above the city, unfettered by the restraints of physics.

We see him travel back through his life, following his childhood and the relationships he had with his parents and sister, and see the chain of events unfold which have led to his demise.

We finally see Oscar conclude his journey through death into the inevitable next step…


From the very start, we know that we are in for something out of the ordinary. Gaspar Noe is not a man for who the title sequence of a film is a formality to be dispensed dispassionately before the action starts. Those familiar with his work will be used to Noe’s bizarre title sequences, and here a mind-battering assault of strobing neon images burst from the screen to a techno-soundtrack. It is an unsettling, disorientating experience, and the message is clear: Noe wants your attention, and what is about to follow is something to be taken very seriously.

And indeed it is. Not to mince words: the opening act of Enter The Void is truly astonishing, and nothing short of a landmark achievement for film. The visual sequences of drug taking, of Oscar’s walk through the city, and of his traumatic death and subsequent ‘rebirth’ are astounding, genuinely original, and utterly immersive. If you want to know what it is like to die, this is the closest you will get without actually going through with it. It is an extraordinary, disturbing and magical experience, which achieves what all great art aspires to: it alters our perception and changes the way we look at the world.

How horribly disappointing therefore that what follows spectacularly fails to measure up. An hour in, Enter The Void seems to dramatically loose it’s steam. The idea of a soul set free of its earthly limitations becomes simply a tool to tell a not-very-interesting back story through banal flashbacks. This mystifying change of pace renders the opening act largely insignificant. After all, why bother to set up this extraordinary premise if you’re then going to abandon it and start plodding through a largely irrelevant melodrama? There are plenty of oedipal subtexts thrown in about breastfeeding, hints at incest, and tunnel images to signify rebirth and reincarnation, but after the ingenuity of the first act, it all feels so depressingly mundane. You begin to wonder what happened to the fearless visionary Noe from an hour before.

The film is lacking in other areas as well. While Irreversible and I Stand Alone were anchored by astonishing performances by Vincent Cassel/Monica Bellucci and Philippe Nahon respectively, the acting in Enter the Void is sadly not up to par. The clunky dialogue is delivered lazily and insincerely, and several characters – particularly Ed Spear as the unpleasant drug dealer Bruno - feel lamentably underused. Others, such as Oscar’s duplicitous friend, are simply just not believable, either as characters in themselves or as part of the story. Matters aren’t improved by the fact that Oscar’s stoned voiceover sounds worryingly reminiscent of Napolean Dynamite.

As the film draws to a close, things go from bad to worse. Anyone who caught Eva, Noe’s recent series of short films for the Grand Journal de Canal, will know that he has an unfortunate tendency to slip over the line from experimental to self-indulgent and pretentious. Sadly, this is given full reign in Enter The Void’s third act. From an explicit orgy in a neon sex hotel, to Noe’s own (patent pending) vagina-cam, showing us an as yet unseen viewpoint of the sexual act, the whole thing descends into a lavish, extravagant mess. Even a neon orgy scene was boring.


From the evidence of the extraordinary first act, coupled with his body of previous works, it’s clear that Gaspar Noe is a rare visionary, an absolute believer in his art, and a peerless exploiter of the visual and auditory possibilities of cinema. It is unfortunate therefore that what should have been one of the great films of our era has instead suffered from the ego of its creator, and has emerged as sprawling and self-indulgent. Certainly see it, because there are things here you’ve never seen before, but you’ll almost certainly come out downhearted knowing that Enter The Void could have been so much better. LOZ