#lff 2014

2015 Live For Films Awards – Voting is now open

Another year gone and so a time to look back and think on what were our favourite films, actors, actresses, fight scenes, music and more from the films of 2014.

Voting is open for the 2015 Live for Films Awards. They will be decided by the readers of Live for Films (that’s you) and you can vote on them all below.

Pick your top 3 in each category.

Voting ends on 14th February and the winners will…

Pinaster

"The Duke of Burgundy" is definitely the prettiest film I have seen this festival. The isolated world of two females, whose world focuses on dominating, being dominated and the study of insects. The film is detailed in its prettiness and so in love with itself that even the perfume "Je Suis Gizella" gets honourful mention in the stylish main credits. This film is such a diva that it even has the prettiest film poster. However just because everything is so pretty doesn't mean it is innocent. Peter Strickland leads into the nightmare in style of "The Beberian Sound Studio" after we realise the master has become the slave and is caught in a nightmarish Moebius loop, altough a very pretty loop, all you are left with is the sound crickets clicking and moths wings flapping. Even safe-word (Pinaster!) won't help you.

Very real and personal

"Winter Sleep" is the most personal film I have seen this festival. Personal because I could really identify myself with the strengths and weaknesses of the main characters. The dialogues reminded me of so many daily life situations and conflicts. The struggles and questions of being so wonderfully portrayed and acted without falling into a cliché. A philosophy that is rather insightful than pretentious. Other Ceylan films do not use much dialogue to tell their stories, so the heavy dialogue was a surprise and completely blew me away. The film almost reflected the experience of three lived lives without being artificial. Needless to say that the Anatolien mountain and village shots are absolutely beautifully photographed, but the characters are the real stars of this Ceylan film.

No translation, no voice over, no subtitles

"The Tribe" is a sign language film with no translation, voice over or subtitles. To get the confusion out of the way, it is a film for everyone and not specifically for deaf people. It is only stars deaf actors. This film is the role model for the film makers "Show don't tell" principle. For me this is the freezing cold Ukrainian version of "Lord of Flies" - instead of retreating to an island after a post-nuclear war these perspective-less young people find shelter in a decaying boarding school in Kiev where everyone communicates in sign-language. The boys establish a brutal pecking order and business. From robbery to pimping out their female companions. Even this is a sign language film, there is a lot of noise with some violent scenes burning into memory. All the time I felt the film was reflecting the mood of the time when the political conflict started in the Ukraine, which the director confirmed in the Q&A. When a girl in the audience accused him of portraying his country in a too grim way, he added while filming in Kiev he walked to McDonald's for lunch where people shot dead were lying on the street with their brains scattered over the pavement.

Andrey Zvyagintsev is a master

Not to confuse with the experimental film which is also a masterpiece. Just when you think you are half way through the film festival and that you have seen most highlights, “Leviathan” emerges from the abyss and blows you out of the water. This film combines so many genres and executes them flawlessly. From a political thriller it wanders into family drama and satire before it unfolds into a poetic dream I have only witnessed in Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s films (with Winter Sleep still on the festival list). Andrey Zvyagintsev’s film is beautifully photographed as well, making me want to check out all his other work I haven’t seen. The opening scene is a montage of cold blue Russian landscapes that look like oil paintings beautifully underpinned with music from Philip Glass. Throughout the film there are still many breathtaking shots even this film focuses more on dialogue and storytelling. A skeleton ribcage of a whale [leviathan] on the beach between bronze green shipwrecks hints at the decay of Russian society that is riddled with government corruption, but also refers to the Bible at the same time. Perhaps the best film I have seen from one of my favourite directors thus year.

Godard IMAX 3D

There is the word god in Godard for a reason. It is also in the original title "Adieu au langage" (dieu = god). He did to 3D what Punk did to guitars. He sneaked into the room of block buster film makers, mutilated their toys to beat them at their own game. Unpretentious but cool at the same time. The 3D got out of control, saturation and grainy textures, the sound distorted/abruptly cut off and frames mixed as two cameras where taped together. The star is a dog, everyone else is just there to deliver dialogues and quote history, painters, philosophers and mathematicians. Perhaps my other famous 3D film was "Pina" ..until this.

This is not earth, this is a different planet

"Hard to be a God" was my first festival endurance run and possibly my last as part of lff. 3 hours I was caught in a black and white Bruegel and Bosch painting. Mud, blood, slime, excrements and even more mud - in closeup. Set on a sibling planet which is 800 years behind, and where the renaissance never happened, it suggests strongly how the dark middle ages must have been. The only thing beautiful is the detail that it is shot on 35mm. In this world rain showers are short and sticky but the fog is permanent. When the credits were rolling [and half of the audience left] I checked for dirt under my shoes. Aleksei German pushed Tarkovsky down the poo hole. I am glad humanity made it through the renaissance, but was glad that I could take an intimate peek at this hell-hole.