#lff 2013

Random Sunday Pic - Tom Hiddleston at the #OLLA premiere during 57th BFI London Film Fest (October 19, 2013)

Colin Farrell at the press conference for "Saving Mr Banks" (BFI LFF)

I don’t think I was properly equipped to watch this film let alone review it. The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tearsis a French giallo-inspired body horror sexual thriller ordeal that spent the better part of two hours putting me through a lot of brutal images and intense tension that failed to relent from the brutal opening titles to the films bloody close.

Computer Chess is a bit of a curio. When it begins you are instantly struck by its unique production style as to compliment its 1980s setting the film was shot on black and white video and the visuals are precisely as low quality as this implies. The film is set over a long weekend in an American hotel where a convention of computer programmers has congregated to battle their chess codes against one another, the victor having to then attempt to beat a human being. The ropey images nicely match the shabbily dressed men that litter the film and the period the film is set where presentations are given using overhead projectors with slides composed on acetates.

Only a few minutes into Richard Ayoade’s second film as director I wrote in my note book in capital letters “I LOVE THIS” and ninety minutes later I did not disagree with myself. Ayoade’s first feature Submarine was a hilarious story of young love that was very much grounded in reality but shot with a distinctive style that stood it out from the crowd. With The Double Ayoade has truly evolved as a film-maker as he has taken his unique eye for film and run with it to create a surreal masterpiece that David Lynch would be proud of.

Two years ago I saw Frederick Wiseman’s previous documentary Crazy Horse in which he took viewers inside Paris’ nude dance revue for just over two hours. Despite the potentially titillating subject matter I found myself bored out of my mind and running for the exit when they threatened us with a Q&A with Wiseman. This year I found myself back in the grip of the much-lauded documentarian as I sat down to watch his latest documentary about Berkeley university that comes in at an astonishing 244 minutes in length. If two hours of strippers won’t entertain me what chance does four hours of university lectures have?

I am someone who loves their bed; I love to be in it and hate to leave it. Because of this a film has a lot to answer for when I am forced (by nobody other than myself) to attend a screening that starts at nine o’clock on a Saturday morning. Night Moves was off to a bad start before it had even begun.