December 2024

All We Imagine as Light

Is a film sending you to sleep TRULY a flaw? Maybe it was the nebulous haze of passively drifting through the teeming metropolis of Mumbai, or maybe it was Tyneside Cinema’s exceptional central heating system, but Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light glows with this radiating sense of a trance-like lullaby: I wasn’t completely honk-shoo zonked, but heavy-eyelids certainly prevailed. And I’m not even sure if I can penalise it for that - it’s the most lethargic and meditative essence of the recently coined ‘No plot just vibes’ phenomena. And with Kapadia originating from documentary filmmaking, voyeuristic observation reigns inherent to its core, however sacrificing that certain hook of substance for me personally. 

Similarly minimalist and naturalistic films are a soft-spot of mine (Yi Yi and Goodbye, Dragon Inn are two of my all time favourites), but All We Imagine as Light perhaps leans too far into the meandering, with its lackadaisical and slumberous nature resulting in a rather thin viewing experience without that definitive latch of engagement. Although a brief moment of magical-realism did jolt me awake towards the final moments, it’s a shame that it fizzles on impact from bookending a pilgrimage so sparse.

Céline Sciamma this unfortunately isn’t - but much like the aforementioned male-gaze masticator, female stories by female directors are always a welcome addition to any cinema screen. Kapadia’s voice is undoubtedly one that deserves to be heard, regardless of my irrelevant, lukewarm stance or menial opinion.

Wicked

As much as I adore cinema, I think there’s an argument to be made that live theatre is the most emotive and sensational storytelling artform: the stage is a platform for hyperbole and exaggeration, where spectators and participants are unbounded in a way that the screen simply does not allow. You’re there. It’s the transcendence of being in the same room as a rhapsodic final number, a reverberating ballad, or in this case, a levitating witch. And Wicked (in massive parenthesis, Part One) does TRY to capture this - my god, it tries. 

The excellent songs are lovingly handled in the cinematic transition, and are replicated with a real reverence to their Broadway roots. This further extends to our two leading ladies - Cynthia Erivo brings the pipes, but Grande absolutely STEALS it as Glinda: she embodies this preppy, doe-eyed ditz of a Sharpay Evans to the chirpiest, primmest and most entertaining of heights. The problem with this undeniable affection for the source material is that it feels constantly at odds with the incredibly corporate and synthetic visual sensibility of director Jon M Chu, diminishing that theatric, textural connection that the stage show offers so intimately, and replacing it with a plastering of weightless CGI and an obnoxious, backlit, milky gloss smothered over the lens. Ironic that a story intrinsically linked to a movie that pioneered technicolor would resort to an intangible aesthetic identity that screams ‘stock’, incessant to the idea that it needs to be ‘a film’ in the most drab and passable sense of the word. 

Although, a heart is certainly beating, something I can’t say for many a recent movie musical, and it doesn't come close to the soulless hideousness of something like The Greatest Showman - a film devoid of life and energy, visually, spiritually or audibly. Wicked on the contrary, is just a very likable and passionate eyesore. 

Queer

I really hope everything is ok in the bedroom for Mr Guadagnino, as his second collaboration with writer Justin ‘Potion Seller’ Kuritzkes continues to wallow in his cinematic exercises in sexual frustration: I find it fascinating how both Challengers and Queer feel like suitable companion pieces, yet simultaneously inverses of each other in the harnessing of their horniness. The icy trifecta of Tashi, Art and Patrick is stylistically manic, but the explicit eroticism internally strenuous, concealed and constantly tightening. Whereas nobody gets to cum in Challengers, loads are certainly blown in Queer - but to what end? 

William Lee’s (Craig) skulking through the aromatic Mexican ambience wavers with this all-consuming sense of loneliness, an antithesis to the frantic energy of the tennis-playing trio. The lustful longing of Queer is right there on its exterior, brilliantly evoking the jittering, infatuated desire of our lead as he attempts to decipher his elusive white-whale of Eugene Allerton (Starkey). This theme of the insatiable appetite for human understanding leads to the film’s internal decadence, awash with the indulgent excesses of drink, drugs, fucking and hallucinogens, exploring the desperate and self-destructive depths of burning, furious amorousness, and eventually hitting levels of cosmic, outer-bodied euphoria in some of the film's most dream-like and gorgeous moments. But the callous reality reveals that primal, human yearning can never be fully satisfied and ravenous want never truly subdued, like a fantastical force incapable of comprehension and control: libido has been the almighty powerhouse in Guadagnino's films this year, and Queer, much like Challengers, touts it as the ultimate lifeblood. 

Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

It seems like it's becoming increasingly embarrassing to be British these days, what with our perpetually moronic government futile in mustering an inch of empathy for the marginalised and vulnerable, and instead choosing the most comically evil resolutions without fail. It’s just another day on shite-island at this stage, but sometimes a certain cheese-loving inventor and his perceptive pooch can stir a slight tinge of patriotism within me. Slight. There’s something about the dynamic between Wallace and Gromit that’s just so effortlessly charming. The principle of Wallace’s hare-brained schemes clashing with Gromit’s reserved nature is never not hugely enjoyable to witness, and Vengeance Most Fowl utilises that relationship as the film’s central emotional thrust both literally and metatextually: not only is technology eradicating the humanist touch a thematic crux, but essential to the very, malleable, fingerprinted foundation of the characters themselves. 

With an anti-AI stance however, it seems contradictory that Vengeance Most Fowl would have such an over reliance on what came before. An abundance of fan service and the particular recycling of The Wrong Trousers score often highlights the films lack of an individual identity, resulting in a rather modest or conservative execution, and certainly falling short of the audacious ideas, scale and creativity seen in Curse of the Were-Rabbit (which, let's be honest, was THE best film of 2005). Part of the fun of the series is the anticipation of the duo's newest business venture or genre parody, and I can't help but feel Vengeance Most Fowl plays it a bit safe in that regard.

But with offerings typically so stellar, maybe there’s a level of unfair pedigree placed on the guys: whenever Wallace and Gromit are on screen, it’s always good, and their resurgence couldn’t have come at a better time. Yes, the nation (and entire world for that matter) feels hopelessly dark and divisive, but having millions crowd around the telly to collectively embrace two quaint northern lads that pedestal goodness, laughter and benevolence…well, that just might be a Christmas miracle.