Leeds International Film Festival 2021
A friend of mine strongly implied that they would like it if I wrote a summary of the films I’ve been to see at the Leeds International Film Festival 2021 (#LIFF2021). So here we go!
Spencer
Time - Wednesday 3rd November 6pm
Country – UK
Year of Release - 2021
The first movie of the festival, and I really liked it. The director did a bit of an intro before the film started, which was very wholesome, but overall the film was very pro-Diana being a loving mum and very anti-royal family. Not the people of the royal family, but the institution of royalty. Indeed, the Queen was shown to be quite a nice person in her one and only brief interaction with Diana. Interesting historical comparison between Diana and Anne Boleyn, and a few subtle references to the conspiracy surrounding Diana’s death. A few of the events shown were extremely private, to the extent that if they were unprovable then it may constitute slander / libel. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that the recent royal escapee, Harry, may have given an interview on the quiet, but I have literally no proof of that other than this movie.
Kristen Stewart did a really good job, and it’s extremely unfortunate that she has been typecast as moody angsty teen because she’s an adult and has done some really good movies recently. Final thoughts: the royal family are going to have to “remove” an awful lot of people now that this movie is out. Keep an eye on the director, he’s not that well known and may “disappear”.
Town of Headcounts
Time - Wednesday 3rd November 8.30pm
Country – Japan
Year of Release – 2020
Very dystopian movie about a town when people can choose to go if they have massive debts or responsibilities they want to escape from. The town seems kind-of like a paradise, but we find out later than there is a very sinister trade-off between security in this town and freedom. Political statistics from Japan are shown throughout, presenting very low political engagement in Japan just like everywhere else in the world.
La Mif
Time - Thursday 4th November 5.45pm
Country – France
Year of Release – 2021
A story about the staff and habitants of a children’s care home in France. Very visceral stuff, with statutory rape portrayed as an issue the staff have to deal with in the first ten minutes or so. As the story progresses, we begin to understand the characters better, both children and staff, why they are at the home, and their motivations for doing the things that the do. The lead carer gives a very controversial opinion to some board of directors, and has to deal with the fallout of that. Very moving ideas presented.
Card Counter
Time - Thursday 4th November 8.30pm
Country - USA
Year of Release – 2021
A film with Oscar Issac in it. It was ok, a strange overlap of revenge for the conditioning of soldiers as torturers in war and professional card playing. I’m not entirely sure I understood what the film was going for, but it was entertaining nonetheless. Oscar Issac portrays quite a complex character who struggles with emotional expression due to his history, and how his friends help him open up a bit beyond just playing cards.
Sing a Bit of Harmony
Time - Sunday 7th November 1pm
Country – Japan
Year of Release - 2021
This was the first movie I saw as a part of the Planet Japan sub-theme of the festival. Not sure how I feel about highlighting 1 specific culture over all others in what is supposed to be an international film festival, but as a friend recently pointed out to me, the UK and Japan have a lot in common historically and culturally speaking. Thanks to Brexit, we are also going to be America’s bitch, economically speaking, just like they are! So I’m always interested in the Japanese perspective on things. Also I like anime, so there’s that too. Check out this animation they did which preceded every Planet Japan Feature https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGnqrvhxYNA
Anyway, Sing a Bit of Harmony. Really beautiful film about an AI who wants her friend to be happy. It did that classic anime movie thing where it makes you emotionally invested through comedy, then it gets serious, and then it makes you cry with happiness. As it turns out, our lovely singing AI was a lot closer to the main characters than we’d been led to believe through the movie and a really emotional reveal at the end made me cry a bit. Maybe self-aware AIs aren’t going to be Terminators in the future. Maybe they’ll need just as much love as we do.
Tokyo Revengers
Time - Sunday 7th November 3.45pm
Country – Japan
Year of Release – 2021
Of all the live action adaptations of anime / manga works, this is only the second that I’ve ever seen that’s, you know, good. The other was Bakuman, and I think the reason they are both good is because they are both based in reality. No magic, no flying around with super powers, laser blasts, stretchy arms, weird looking death gods, giant humanoid monsters or alchemy. No, Tokyo Revengers is based in Japanese youth gang culture (Bakuman is a manga about manga artists, by the way. Very good. You should read it, but also watch the live action if you want!).
Tokyo Revengers is about a guy in a dead-end job in a dead-end life. He reads in the newspaper that his childhood girlfriend has died, and pines for the days when he was a “cool” high-schooler. Then he discovers that he can time travel, and tries to save his past girlfriend by stopping the Yakuza-esque gang responsible for her death by stopping them from forming in the first place. But, as it turns out, the gang leader is actually a nice guy! Very over the top violence to the point of being a caricature, the movie is funny, bloody, violent, heart-warming and optimistic all at the same time. Who would’ve though such a thing could be possible xD
A Banquet
Time – Monday 8th November 3.30pm
Country - UK
Year of Release – 2021
An extremely dark movie that deals with very abstract horrors. A mother attempts to deal with her daughter after she has been literally infected with existential dread. Her daughter does not eat, cannot summon the motivation to do anything and she simply does not understand why. After all, her daughter has everything. A nice house, extremely nice meals cooked for her, she’s clever etc etc.
I’ve been reading a lot of H.P. Lovecraft books recently so this really hit me in the soul. I think adults would do well to watch this if they want to understand what it’s like to be a millennial or later generation in a world of climate change and political chaos.
Hit the Road
Time – Monday 8th November 6pm
Country – Iran
Year of Release – 2021
The thing I loved most about this movie was that it portrayed the people of Iran without them first being filtered through the news networks. It was a really moving story following a family as they go on a “road trip”. Over the course of the story, we find out that the road trip they are on is a little bit more sinister, showing what a family will do for one another. There was a bit of a culture clash for me for how parents treat children, but overall it showed Iranian families to be exactly like Western families in terms of the love they show one another. Because of course they are. They are not the evil religious zealots the media would have you believe, even if their leaders are.
The Innocents
Time – Monday 8th November 8.30pm
Country – Norway / Scandanavia
Year of Release – 2021
This was a bit of a strange one. A couple of kids discovered that they have telekinetic powers, and they all immediately started being quite cruel with it. One of the worked their way up to murder, and then it became a game of cat and mouse between the children. There was a bit about how their living situations affected their personalities, but overall I thought it was a bit of a harsh picture of children!
The Exam
Time – Wednesday 10th November 4.15pm
Country – Iraq
Year of Release – 2021
This was a really really poetic movie, really enjoyed it. It’s about an Iraqi teenage girl who is trying to pass her university entrance exams in order to escape, basically, her entire life. A forced marriage to a guy she barely knows, never mind likes. A family who control what she does, a society that thinks she’s worth less than a man. The film portrays the remnants of ISIS just in the background, on TV and stuff. The subtle (brave) suggestion is that the threat of ISIS and the threat of marriage is the same to women in these situations. Quite harrowing really, and not a pleasant ending.
Tiong Bahru Social Club
Time – Thursday 11th November 5.45pm
Country – Singapore
Year of Release – 2020
Fricking loved this one! As a piece of social satire it’s great. It’s about a guy who goes to “work” in a controlled neighbourhood where everyone’s “happiness” is measured and “optimised”. I’m putting everything in quotation marks because this is obviously nonsense, and that’s the point of the movie. Measuring a person’s happiness via some biometric data and trying to increase that metric takes away what it is to be a human being. To experience, to grow, to break some boundaries etc. Even to feel sad, or angry. Negative emotions are part of the human experience too, after all, as the residents of Tiong Bahru Social Club find out about half way through the movie. It ends with the main character, who is quite happy actually, choosing to leave to be with his mother again. There was also a parallel with how happiness in modern society is measured by, wealth / gdp, which is also nonsense, but it’s a nonsense many of us have internalised. Very worth a watch, and the underlying critique is presented through black comedy rather than just endless misery. This was very welcome!
Angel’s Egg
Time – Friday 12th November 3.45pm
Country – Japan
Year of Release – 1985
This one was the first film I actively did not enjoy. For each of the Planet Japan features, there was this dude who did a little speech beforehand. I jokingly said to my friend Kalila that he must be “The head Weeb” but I’m sure he’s an actually important guy involved with…something. Anyway, he said that the director of the movie, Mamoru Oshii, was quoted as saying (paraphrasing) “This is a film about a girl and new beginnings. Don’t look any deeper than that.”, or something along those lines. This sort of thing is a classic excuse of high art and modern artists when their work is not understood. In my opinion (and this is just that, an opinion), death of the author is nonsense. People do things for a reason, and in art it is about a dialogue with the audience. If the audience cannot interpret a piece or worse, can interpret it however they like, then communication between artist and audience has failed. I believe this was the case the Angel’s Egg.
The plot, if there was such a thing, was almost impossible to understand. The was a strange mix of Old Testament Christian symbolism mixed with a slight hint that human nature cannot be changed. It may have been post-apocalyptic as one of the two characters had a cross made out of motorbike parts but…I’m not sure. Kind of aesthetically pleasing in the same way H.R Giger’s artwork is aesthetically pleasing.
Summer Ghost
Time – Friday 12th November 6pm
Country – Japan
Year of Release – 2021
This was the first film by a relatively new name in the anime world, Loundraw. He got famous on pixiv and deviantart and started his own studio, Flat Studio, based on the idea of equality in animation film-making. Pretty beautiful! Anyway, this was so new that the showing at Leeds International Film Festival was the international premier! Leeds is doing ok for itself these days on the art front. It’s almost like it’s trying to win European City of Culture in 2023…(https://leeds2023.co.uk/about-leeds-2023/)
I really loved this movie, only 40 minutes long but full of plot points that hit extremely close to home. It’s about a group of three teenagers who have serious issues in their lives. The meet a ghost by performing a ritual, and the ghost helps them through their lives and their struggles. A bit selfishly, perhaps, but she does. The length of the movie reminded me of Hotarubi no Mori e, another short film with equally deep emotional hits. I don’t want to say any more because it’ll take away the impact if you watch it.
Unfortunately, in the Film Festival special film catalogue, they put a picture from “Summer Time Machine Blues” with this movie. Small error, I’ll let them off…
Summer Time Machine Blues
Time – Sunday 14th November 12.30pm
Country – Japan
Year of Release – 2005
An older movie here, Summer Time Machine Blues is a time travel comedy that I can only describe as like Back To the Future if it didn’t take itself so seriously. In fact, in a nice nod, they slyly reference Back to the Future in the movie itself, first with a poster in the background so you know what the rules of time travel are going to be…ish, and second, when a scientist and a theatre usher / sci-fi movie fan are arguing about whether Back to the Future is a good movie given its time travel mechanics. Very meta-humour, I liked it. The sci-fi usher had Jean-Luc Picard’s Starfleet uniform on as well :D
The movie is about a group of sci-fi nerds who deny that they are sci-fi nerds (classic sci-fi nerd behaviour) who discover a time machine and spend the rest of the movie trying to tie up about a million time-travelly loose ends. When all of the different threads come together, it’s incredibly satisfying! Very funny movie, that also has some actual logical consistency to it! Very rare in time travel movies. This was easily one of the happiest movies of the festival. No happy-sadness, just comedy happy!
Unapologetic
Time – Sunday 14th November 3.30pm
Country – USA
Year of Release – 2020
Not much to say about this one really. It was a documentary about anti-racist activities in the USA seen through the eyes of some of the activists. There was an interesting contrast between grassroots activism and academic study and formal critique of the system. The documentary never came down on which is “better”, if any, but one of the activists said she preferred the grassroots stuff.
Fortune Favours Lady Nikuko
Time – Sunday 14th November 5.45pm
Country – Japan
Year of Release – 2021
This movie was really good, and also very clever. The core theme that I got from this was that growing up and the responsibilities that come with it are dealt with by different people in different ways. This is shown mostly through Lady Nikuko herself. She is extremely loud, playful and a bit chaotic, not behaviours associated with being “grown-up” at all. Yet we see later in the film that even though she is a bit naïve and possibly even a bit stupid, she is an incredibly loving and responsible woman. She carries a lot of metaphorical weight around with her but steps up to the responsibilities dealt to her through her life, even when she didn’t choose these things herself. A very beautiful character.
Although the title talks about Lady Nikuko, she is a deutragonist with her daughter, Kikuko. Through the movie, she learns what maturity means in her interactions with cliquey school groups and also a guy with a very visible facial tick who understands what it’s like to stand out. In quite a brave move by the writers, they show her growing up at the end of the movie by having her start her first period. One she understands what it means to grow up, she physically does so. Very poetic.
I’ve been learning Japanese for a few years now (to strengthen an academic fellowship application, not because I’m a massive weeb, leave me alone!) so that gave me some extra insight into this movie. Kikuko mentions at the start that her mother Nikuko is a fan of Japanese word play and double meanings. The way Japanese language works means that a lot of words, although different when written down as kanji, sound the same when spoken aloud (homonyms), with their meaning coming from context. This means that the language allows for puns and poetry beyond anything a latin-based language can do. There are a few punny jokes and insights into how kanjis are formed, but more importantly, the movie itself is about a double meaning / misunderstanding, isn’t it? This idea of growing up and responsibility is contrasted with so-called maturity and that solemness and seriousness that supposedly comes with it. “Lady Nikuko” is a bit tongue-in-cheek, actually, as Nikuko is initially portrayed as very lively, playful and a bit immature. She seems to take nothing seriously except eating and a love of meat-based dishes. Not a “lady” at all. This is a really clever translation into English, as her actual name in Japanese cannot be directly translated. Her name is actually given on the Japanese posters as 肉子ちゃん, or “Nikuko-chan” 肉子, “Nikuko” literally means “meat child” in English, but they double down on the “child” part with the suffix “chan”, which is the suffix used for young children and particularly girls. So her very name in Japanese portrays her as childlike. This was translated to “Lady Nikuko” in English because the “Lady” part is immediately shown to be nonsense when the film begins, making it feel sarcastic and giving the same overall feel of her extreme childlike nature in the English translation.
Justice of Bunny King
Time – Tuesday 16th November 5.45pm
Country – New Zealand
Year of Release – 2021
It seems that the UK and New Zealand have a lot in common with regards to the central state care systems. This film is about a mother who is struggling to have a relationship with her children, who have been taken away from her for reasons we find out at the climax of the movie. She cannot get a job, and this she cannot get a house, and thus . The classic cycle of poverty that our lovely governments like to pretend isn’t a systemic issue, but is instead because people don’t try hard enough or some shit. Bunny does her best though, washing car windows and saving what little she can while living at her sisters. A few awful things happen along the way and she does her best to navigate them, protecting minors along the way. A very touching movie and I loved it a lot.
Notable thing, Essie Davis plays Bunny King. She is also the lead in the Babadook. In both these amazing movies she is absolutely spectacular in the lead role, and other than bit parts, these are all I’ve seen her in. Going by the proportion of amazing films vs shit films I’ve seen her in, she’s currently the best actor in the world! The secondary main character is Thomasin Harcourt who, according to people I know, is good in Last Night in Soho, but also in Jojo Rabbit, the main film of the Leeds Film Festival a few years ago. That’s two Leeds Film Festival films she has smashed! Here’s to the next one!
Clara Sola
Time – Tuesday 16th November 8.15pm
Country – Costa Rica
Year of Release – 2021
The last movie I saw, this one was very…esoteric. Clara is an autistic woman who is believed to have been visited by the Virgin Mary by her village, and is thrust into a role of almost sainthood by her devout mother. But from what I understood, she just wants to commune with nature and with animals, having trouble with almost all people except her close family and a guy she likes. Through the movie she has to deal with new feelings and responsibilities. Quite a interesting character to follow.
What I liked most about this movie was less about the plot, and more Learning about religion is different places. For example, is the Virgin Mary a goddess figure in some forms of Christianity? Catholicism, maybe? I thought false idols and other gods were a big no no? Anyway, there was a mild anti-religious undertone to the movie, which was shown quite abruptly at the end with a fire. Maybe that’s my own personally biases though, I dunno.
Summary
Overall, I really enjoyed the festival. I think it was a bit too focused on negative and dark themes, and could have done with a little more of the escapism angle of film making. You don’t have to make a movie sad in order to generate a reaction, even a political action. There are loads more emotions that would do a better job; optimism, anger, joy, comedy! Tiong Bahru Social Club showed this was the case! Nevertheless, the movies really gave me insight into the inner workings of and perspectives of people from other countries that I wouldn’t normally see. For example, Iraq and Iran. I usually only hear about these countries from the news, and those portrayals are, how can I put it…extremely negatively biased. Interestingly, when I typed the word “Iranian” into my phone to post a Tweet about “Hit the Road”, the first two autofill options were “government” and “nuclear”. Autofill is a machine learning algorithm that learns from what all people who use the OS type most commonly, and so we see that for most people, that’s all Iran is. And yet, just like every country on earth, Iran has a rich culture. Of course they have their issues, but such a culture should not be systematically ignored. Similarly, “The Exam” showed that the women of Iraq have issues which would strongly resonate with Western women, but they have to deal with them in uniquely Iraqi ways. A cultural dialog through art like this would be beautiful to see.
Unfortunately, the Film Festival was a distinctly middle class event. The cost of the festival would almost certainly put poorer people off, and it’s those very people who would most benefit from exposure to other cultures. I think a stronger push needs to be made by LIFF and all of its partners and sponsors to make the festival accessible to everyone. Now that Channel 4 is based in Leeds and has already show itself to be a patron of the arts by sponsoring Leeds Light Night in October 2021, and has marketed itself as an unique, quirky and alternative perspective in the UK media (cite adverts that they put up), perhaps they’d be willing to fund a few hundred passes for local schools to give out. Just a thought.
Thanks for reading, hope it was useful!