Category Archives: Edinburgh

Edinburgh Film Festival: Berberian Sound Studio

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Finally, a Powell nominee that looks, feels and, most of all, sounds like an award winner.  Berberian Sound Studio, from Katalin Varga director Peter Strickland, stars Toby Jones as a sound technician recruited to work on a Suspiria-esque Italian horror film in the early 70s. More at home with gentle documentaries about the English countryside than graphic tales of undead witches, Jones soon finds his grip on reality loosening.

It’s difficult to describe the plot in any more detail: it’s essentially a journey into the protagonist’s fracturing psyche.  So while those seeking a traditional narrative may be left frustrated, anyone who wants to see the tools of cinema used to surprising and creative effect can expect a treat.  I was reminded of The Artist by the way sound is used to play with and confound audience expectations, while the sense of menace and disorientation has much in common with David Lynch (I was particularly put in mind of Inland Empire).

Spaghetti horrror buffs may well also be intrigued (it did cross my mind that the film might also turn up at FrightFest); it’s clear Strickland knows his Argento, and while some genre fans might be baffled by the closing scenes, I’ve seen Lucio Fulci films that made a lot less sense.

It’s one of the best films at the Festival, and one which clearly loves film – both as an artform and a physical object.  Highly recommended.

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Edinburgh 2012 part II

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Three days in to this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival, and while I haven’t seen any major stinkers, there’s been nothing to blow me away either. Let’s start with the longest. Blood of My Blood is a three hour drama set in Lisbon, based around the travails of Maria (Rita Blanco) and her extended family. The themes are family loyalty and sacrifice, but the tools unfortunately include a plot reveal straight from the box of melodramatic cliches. Also, a climactic scene is overly unpleasant – that’s enough forced blow jobs for one year, Edinburgh, thanks all the same.

Lovely Molly is the latest from Eduardo Blair Witch Sanchez, and suffers from overfamiliarity. Not only does the use of video footage recall his debut (although this is not a found footage film), but plot elements recall recent releases such as The Silent House and The Pact.

Gretchen Lodge is very good as newlywed Molly, who moves with her husband Tim into her parents’ home. Pretty soon, things are going bump in the night and family skeletons are emerging from the closet. Is this an actual haunting, or is Molly going nuts?

The answer seemed pretty obvious to me, despite some attempts to imply a supernatural dimension – which Sanchez admitted in the Q&A were bumped up after early test screenings. Although that does give us one memorably eerie image at the close, it also means the story doesn’t completely satisfy at either level. An OK watch that doesn’t offer anything new, you can safely wait until this one’s on telly.

That’s also true of Flying Blind, a BBC production starring Helen McCrory as an aerospace engineer who starts a relationship with Algerian student – OR IS HE? – played by Najib Oudghiri. Though nicely played and good to look at (Bristolians can play spot the location), the central relationship feels like a dramatic construct rather than anything real. If the superior Page Eight last year couldn’t muster a cinema release, there’s no reason for this not to go straight to BBC 2.

Better things came with Life Without Principle, Johnny To’s crime thriller set against a global financial shitstorm. Various characters – among them a cop, a gangster, a bank saleswoman, and a bunch of financially strapped innocent bystanders – are involved in are affected by the murder of a loan shark. I’d bet my money on a Hollywood remake of this coming our way before long, so invest some time in the original.

Finally, one of my favourites to date. The best thing about festivals is sitting down for a film about which you no little and expect nothing, and being delighted by the result. That’s what happened with Flicker, a deadpan Swedish comedy centred around the struggling Unicom Telecommunications company.

Attempting to launch a new 4G network, but faced with a misguided advertising campaign and customer dissatisfaction and regular sabotage, the company also has staff who aren’t quite up to the challenge. Chief among them is sad sack Kenneth (Jacob Nordenson), whose recurring IT problems leave a crucial report incomplete, and Trod (Knell Bergqvist), the company head, who is heroically unaware of his own inadequacy.

Though we eventually realise the film is set in 2011, the design seems to have been pickled in the 70s. Almost everything at Unicom (including the cars, the decor, and Kenneth’s entire wardrobe) is in shades of brown. (Maybe bits of Sweden do look like this, but it seems unlikely.) Their attempts at promotional launches are no more up to date.

A number of plots intertwine, occasionally threatening to tip from somewhat black comedy to outright tragedy, while never quite doing so. Occasionally absurdist, with moments of outright slapstick, the film is quite a charmer. Lovely closing shot, too.

Edinburgh 2012: Day one

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The Life and Times of Paul, the Psychic Octopus

Alexandre O Philippe’s documentary The People vs George Lucas, shown at Edinburgh a couple of years ago, was a hugely entertaining look at Star Wars fans’ love/hate relationship with their favourite films,and their creator. His latest also looks at how celebrity culture affects and inspires its followers, through the story of the cephalopod who enjoyed a stunning run of accurate predictions during the 2010 world cup.

Opening on a melancholy note with Paul’s funeral, the film then looks at his rise to fame, his effect on those around him, and the question of whether or not his predictions were anything more than a massive fluke. Many of those interviewed – Paul’s UK-based agent, for one – clearly have their tongues in their cheeks at least part of the time, but the film is careful to allow Paul, and the other animals who make brief appearances, to retain their dignity. It’s like a more flippant version of last year’s Project Nim. Even the psychics who claim to receive messages from the deceased octopus are not mocked (at least not openly; the viewer can draw their own conclusions). It’s a nice balancing act that results in an entertaining film that asks sensible questions about a silly subject; although the relatively brief running time is quite long enough.

7 Days in Havana

A portmanteau movie from directors including Benicio del Toro, Gaspar Noe and Laurent Cantet (among others) that comprises seven short films set in the titular Cuban city. That’s quite a few shorts, and I did feel that maybe 5 days in Havana would have allowed several of them valuable extra breathing space. As it is, the stories are on the slight side, starting with Josh Hutcherson as a young actor who has a brief encounter on s drunken night out. Emir Kusturica amusingly plays himself as a drunk, grudgingly accepting an award from the Havana Film Festival, but the most memorable and disturbing segment is Noe’s voodoo vignette. While as a full movie it may not totally satisfy, Havana itself – as always – looks, and sounds, beautiful.

Killer Joe

This year’s opening film is a lurid, violent, occasionally funny slice of melodrama from William Friedkin; though if I hadn’t known, I might have taken it for a lost work by Oliver Stone.

Matthew McConaughey is on great form in the title role, as a cop who moonlights as a hired killer. He’s employed by a spectacularly dumb white trash family for a plan masterminded by Chris (Emile Hirsch) to kill his mother for the insurance payout. As Joe normally demands payment up front, Chris agrees to put up his younger sister Dottie up as collateral. Dottie (Juno Temple) appears to be away with the fairies for much of the time, but to what extent is tough to say.

Obviously, the plan goes wrong, and it does so in a fairly OTT manner. I was unaware going in that the film is based on a play (by Tracey Letts) but it became obvious well before the end. It actually feels like something Quentin Tarantino trying to write like Tennessee Williams; the mix of explicit violence and black comedy is sometimes uncomfortable, and the characters never feel as though they have any existence beyond the stage.

Edinburgh 2011 reviews continued

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Albatross: Enjoyable coming of age yarn that plays a little like Tamara Drewe, though for my money it’s a lot more entertaining.  The middle aged writer this time is Sebastian Koch, still living off and haunted by the success of his debut novel a couple of decades previously.  The object of his desire is Emilia (Jessica Brown-Findlay), a free spirit, aspiring writer and new best friend to his daughter Beth (Felicity Jones). 

Emilia is a gift of a role for Brown-Findlay, who will deservedly get a lot more work from this film (I was trying to remember what I recognised her from – turned out to be an episode of Misfits, though she was also in Downton Abbey).  Koch and Jones are also strong, as is Julia Ormonds as Beth’s bitter mother.  It is perhaps a bit too tidily structured (it’s like, everyone in the film has an albatross round their neck, yeah?) but a very worthwhile watch nonetheless.

Rabies: This Israeli horror starts like many a torture porn flick: a young woman is caught in a trap in the woods, a young man is struggling to free her, a killer is on the prowl.  Once the rest of the characters turn up – two couples looking for a tennis club, a couple of cops – it becomes more of a black comedy. On those terms it works pretty well, though it does stretch credulity that so many stupid people could show up in the same remote spot in such a tight time period.  The film has some decent jumps among the running around in the woods, and a good punchline, but the high level of fuckwittery on display makes you want to throttle many of the characters. 

Troll Hunter: The hotly anticipated found footage comedy horror from Norway.  A trio of students are attempting to make a film about an apparent poacher: it’s not really spoiling things to say he turns out to be a troll hunter, secretly employed by the Norwegian authorities to manage the country’s troll population. 

My expectations for this were probably too high, and I suspect I’ll like it more on a second viewing.  First time round I felt the need for more scares among the comedy, and a subplot about one of the characters becoming ill ends up going nowhere.  But the basic concept is strong, and the trolls themselves are beautifully rendered, looking just like you imagined them in childhood. 

The Divide: There seem to be a quite a few apocalypses on screen at Edinburgh this year (apocalypti?), and this is the most depressing.  After someone – we never know who – drops a nuke on New York, a group of characters hole up in a bunker under their apartment building to wait for rescue, which doesn’t come.  Things get gradually worse and worse for them, and the luckless audience.  I can’t honestly recommend that anyone see this film, but if you want something that crushes all sense of hope and fills you with loathing and contempt for your fellow man, then this certainly does the job.

Finally, The Caller.  A slightly odd selection for the Festival – it’s not bad by any means, but I’m not clear what it’s doing here rather than the shelves of HMV in a box with ‘the stars of Twilight and True Blood’ plastered across it.

Rachel Lefevre moves into an old apartment after splitting from her violent husband, where she starts getting phone calls from a woman who thinks it’s 1977.  Our heroine decides it would be a good idea to encourage her to be less of a doormat, only to inadvertantly create a monster – a crazed murderer who who is able to bump off the people she cares about before she’s even met them. 

It reminded me of Asif Kapadia’s The Return, in that it’s a straight to DVD premise with greater stylistic aspirations.  Lefevre and her love interest Stephen Moyer are both good, but it’s one of those films that will work just as well on TV.

Edinburgh 2011 part II

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Interestingly, the first two documentaries I’ve seen at Edinburgh this year have followed very similar plot arcs.  Both concern an individual who is feted from an early age for his unusual intellectual abilities. In both films, the subject becomes a media darling before his unpredictable and aggressive behaviour begins to drive his friends away. He becomes a lonely, tragic individual before a late partial redemption, thanks to old friends and supportive well-wishers, allows him to live out his days in a degree of comfort and security. Both tell their stories through a.mix of archive footage and interviews with people who knew and worked with the subject, who is now deceased.

Also, they’re both excellent.

The comparison does fall down in that genius chess player Bobby Fischer- subject of Bobby Fischer Against the World- was brought down by his own paranoia and madness, whereas Nim Chimsky- the primate whose life is explored in Project Nim – was exploited  from birth by humans whose motives he could not possibly understand. He was initially part of an experiment to study apes’ potential to learn  to communicate like humans, being raised in a family like human baby, and taught sign language. Later, as  he became too strong and unpredictable to control, he ended up in an animal experimentation lab.

A number of his teachers clearly feel a degree of guilt for the part they played in Nim’s unnatural life (though the project’s originator might benefit from a little more self awareness). Nim’s essential powerlessness makes his story the more emotionally affecting of the two, but both films are highly recommended.

Edinburgh 2011 reviews

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The first couple of days of screenings here have been a mixed bag. John Michael Macdonald’s The Guard turned out to be a fine choice for opening film: a hugely entertaining crowd pleaser which sees In Bruges meet Lethal Weapon. The shared lineage with the former film is evident throughout; not only are the directors brothers,  there’s the presence of Brendan Gleeson, on top form with the hilariously sweary dialogue. Here, Gleeson’s deceptively undistinguished Garda officer is teamed with Don Cheadle’s FBI agent to track down  team of drug smugglers led by Liam Cunningham and Mark Strong.
The Argentine end of the world drama Phase 7 had it’s moments, but some odd shiftsin tone meant I couldn’t enjoy it as much as I would have liked.  As society collapses under the onslaught of a deadly virus, a young couple hole up in their apartment block while their neighbours take up arms against each other.  
The scenario is played mostly straight, but with occasional jarring lurches into black comedy and slapstick that do little more than diffuse tension.  Worse, the central couple are quite annoying –  he guy is petulant  and unreliable, while the woman spends most of her time complaining (often with some cause, but still).  I was also distracted by the score, which is a homage (or rip off, if you’re feeling less charitable) of John Carpenter’s back catalogue. I’ve seen worse, but it’s not a total success.
Much better is Tomboy, a tween variant on Boy’s Don’t Cry, from Water Lillies director Celine Sciamma. Lead character, a 10 year old girl called Laure, moves house and impulsively pretends to the local kids that she’s a boy. It’s very plausible at first – lead Zoe Heran is remarkable, and the film actually conceals her gender for the first 10 minutes – but the illusion proves harder and harder to maintain, and you’re soon dreading the inevitable. A moving, believable film with a  collection of superb child performances.
The Hungarian auteur Bela Tarr makes films for people who find the works of Ingmar Bergman to be on the frenetic side.   Turin Horse, which may apparently be his final work, is described in the programme this: “In Turin in 1889, the philosopher Fredrich Nietzsche stopped a cab driver from whipping his horse and promptly collapsed, spending hs remaining years in more or less demented silence.” Quite what this has to do with the events we seeon screen I’m unclear, though “demented silence” is certainly how the two main characters live. A man and his adult daughter living in an isolated house on a permanently windswept plain, we see then going about their daily routine: feeding the horse, cleaning, cooking (their diet consists of boiled potatoes and nothing else).
Gradually we become aware that something is wrong: a neighbour visits with warnings of doom, the horse become sick and refuses to eat.  Just what apocalyptic events are  unfolding we never learn: we simply observe the two people descend into silent, baffled despair.
Tarr – who has also programmed some vintage Hungarian cinema for this year’s EIFF – can only be described as an acquired taste. His work makes no concessions to those who enjoy such things as plot and dialogue. You have to be willing to immerse yourself in his bleak, black and white, doom-laden visions to get any kind of pleasure from this film; not everyone will be willing to make that kind of leap.

Edinburgh 2011

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So with about a month to go before it starts, the Edinburgh Film Festival programme has been released.  And it’s… interesting.
This year’s EIFF has been hit by funding cuts – a deal with the UK Film Council to support the move to June ended last year – and it’s noticeably smaller than before.  Big premieres are noticeable by their absence (there’s no closing night film, for example, and no Best of the Fest on the final Sunday… maybe they’re not anticipating many sellouts).  More puzzlingly, there’s no Michael Powell Award for Best British Film, which was something that made Edinburgh stand out from the rash of festivals, and can’t have encouraged the submission of potentially major films.  
One film widely expected to be in the programme was We Need to Talk about Kevin, starring as it does EIFF Patron Tilda Swinton.  Unfortunately, it’s late 2011 UK release date means Artificial Eye are holding it back – a perfectly sensible decision from their point of view (a UK premiere at the London Film Festival will make more sense), and there’s nothing new about big Cannes titles failing to show up in Edinburgh. 
The Festival has retreated entirely from the Cineworld to the Cameo and Filmhouse (plus a few others).  No doubt some will see this as a good thing – there is grumbling from the some sections of the press every year about having to see films in a multiplex usually patronised by – shudder – ordinary cinemagoers.  To this I say, bollocks.  Quite apart from the fact that a Festival of this nature ought to be reaching out to the non-Sight and Sound reading contingent, the Cineworld is a perfectly acceptable venue.  Certainly, after a few screenings on the trot in the cramped and often stifling Filmhouse 1, I invariably find myself thinking wistfully of its generous leg room and air conditioning.
Given that last years EIFF was widely reported to have seen a drop in audiences (though by how much, and how it compared to the Festival’s last year in August, I don’t know; can anyone point me to the info?) it will be interesting to see how the organisers spin the eventual ticket sales for 2011.  I’m not suggesting that ticket sales are the only indicator of a Festival’s success, but if last year’s event is being tagged by some as a disappointment, how will they react to an inevitable drop in a Festival almost half the size of its predecessor? 
So, what have we got?  The theme is ‘All That Heaven Allows’, which means… um… well, I’m not sure, really.  It does involve a screening of the Douglas Sirk film of the same name, though.  And it has involved films being picked by a number of guest curators.  Some of these are very interesting choices; Bela Tarr, for example. He’s programmed Passion, a 1955 Hungarian version of The Postman Always Rings Twice.  I can’t imagine getting too many other chances to see that. But there are quite a lot of guest curators, and they only seem to have picked one or two titles each.  I would have preferred to have seen a more substantial selection from one or two curators. 
But that’s enough grumbling; what am I actually looking forward to seeing?  Well, The Guard looks like a promising pick for the opening night.  I rarely get a must-see feeling about big screen documentaries, but a sensible link up with Sheffield’s documentary festival has created a strong non-fiction strand; my top picks are Bobby Fischer Against the World, Sound it Out (about an independent record shop) and Project Nim, from James Man on Wire Marsh.  Studio Ghibli bring us the Mary Norton adaptation The Borrower Arietty (though the purist in me is vaguely resentful we seem to be getting the dubbed version). There’s The Last Circus, the new Alex de la Iglesia, and a number of horror/fantasy titles; I’m most anticipating Norwegian mockumentary Troll Hunter, but there’s also the Argentine end of the world tale Phase 7, and something called Rabies, about which the brochure seems oddly sheepish (“Horror fans will love this”, we’re assured, though it’s “silly”).
But brochure copy only tells you so much; the jury will remain out (even though Edinburgh doesn’t have a jury this year) until we’ve been able to see the films.  It’s a big year for the EIFF, one the organisers readily describe as being transitional, and I’m hoping it will work.  Either way, it will be interesting to see the choices the Festival makes for its future.

Winter’s Bone

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Winter’s Bone

Based on a novel by Daniel Woodrell, of whom I was previously unaware but intend to check out in the near future, Debra Granik’s engrossing, immersive thriller is my clear favourite of the Festival. A dark drama that convincingly depicts a rural, poverty blighted society normally only seen as monsters in horror films, it also features a remarkable lead performance by Jennifer Lawrence.

Lawrence plays Ree Jolly, a 17 year old girl who – already responsible for her frail mother and two younger siblings – is told that her drug-dealing father has put their home up as security on his bail bond. Currently missing, he needs to show up for his court hearing or the family will be made homeless. Ree is obliged to undertake a dangerous quest to track him down – dead or alive.

In this desolate mountain town, drug addiction is endemic and drug dealing seems to be the major industry and source of income. The people involved, whose identities seem to be at best an open secret, are less than pleased to have Ree asking questions, and it soon starts to look as though she may the next to go mysteriously missing.

Watching the film, you can’t help but become angry that this young woman – who is demonstrably loyal, brave, occasionally droll – should be obliged to shoulder this kind of responsibility, even outside of the thriller plot. Looking at the older women in the film you see her likely future, and it’s infuriating. In a way, one of the most distressing scenes has Ree teaching her little brother how to shoot – distressing both because seeing small children handle weapons feels wrong, but also because you understand the lesson is actually necessary just so the family can continue to eat.

The supporting cast features a seamless blend of local people alongside more familiar faces like Deadwood’s John Hawkes, Garret Dillahunt and Twin Peaks’ Sheryl Lee. All contribute to the feeling that this is a window onto a very real, specific world, one rarely explored in cinema. It’s being released in the UK in September by Artificial Eye, and comes hugely recommended.

More Edinburgh Reviews

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Thunder Soul
One of those films that leaves you feeling a little bit better about the world, Thunder Soul is the story of the Kashmere Stage Band, its founder, and its members. A Houston high school jazz band, Kashmere achieved local, national and even international fame in the 1970s under the leadership of committed music teacher Conrad ‘Prof’ Johnson.
The film centres on a reunion gig by past band members for their now 90+ and ailing Prof. All speak movingly of how his dedication and refusal to accept anything less than the best inspired and changed them, to the point where several credit him with keeping them out of jail. Meanwhile, some of the band’s more recent fans – their recordings have been widely sampled, and now re-released on CD – discuss how Prof revolutionised the high school band scene by introducing soul and funk, and amping up the performance.
Teachers like Johnson are not unique, but are sadly rare, and don’t always fit well into the system. Though he was responsibility for transforming the fortunes of the impoverished school, ongoing battles with the administrators eventually led to his retirement. He speaks passionately in interviews of the importance of music and arts programmes in schools; anyone who doubts their worth should be obliged to watch this film. Johnson’s legacy is clear to see: not just the music, but in the now fiftysomething students whose lives he transformed.

Boy
Every year at Edinburgh there’s one really good film about early adolescence and growing up (actually, this is probably true of most festivals). This year’s is set in a Maori community in 1984, and comes from Taika Waitiki (of Flight of the Conchords/Eagle versus Shark fame) and successfully mixes 80s nostalgia, comedy and family drama.
11 year old Boy is delighted when his father returns home after an extended absence. Supposedly there to reconnect with his kids, he’s really planning to dig up some hidden loot. Boy likes to see his father as a glamorous, fearless rogue, beholden to no man; he’s actually a petty crook and habitual spinner of tall tales.
Waitiki’s performance as the father may be the showiest turn but it’s the likeable group of child actors who stay with you the most, as Boy gradually comes to see his real father, flaws and all. The bittersweet elements are shot through with crowd pleasing visual comedy, culminating in a version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller under the end credits.

Pelican Blood
Pelican Blood starts Harry Treadaway as Nikko, a birdwatcher with a past of OCD and self harming which culminated in a failed suicide attempt. When his similarly troubled ex-girlfriend Stevie (Emma Booth) re-enters his life, his friends and family soon become concerned for his well being… with good reason.
I liked Pelican Blood while watching it, but seeing Third Star the following day really threw its flaws into sharp relief. We never learn the source of Nikko and Stevie’s self-destructive streak (perhaps there isn’t one) beyond the fact that they met on a suicide website.
Unfortunately, while the banter between Nikko and his fellow birdwatchers feel natural, his scenes with Stevie are artificial in comparison. There’s nothing wrong with shifting tones in a film, but in this case – though you are certainly rooting for a happy ending for Nikko – the film never really comes together as a whole.

Third Star
Like Pelican Blood, Third Star is about a young man facing his premature death. But this one is not self inflicted: James (Benedict Cumberbatch) has terminal cancer. While he still has time, he undertakes a camping trip to his favourite Welsh beauty spot with his three best mates.
Though the trip starts in a cordial manner, you know the quartet’s various tensions, neuroses and rivalries are guaranteed to come to the surface before the destination is reached. And indeed they do, prompted in part by various setbacks along the way, and partly by James’s desire to make his friends face up to their individual failings and compromises, inspired by his frustration that that they are failing to make the most of the years he has been denied.
Such a set up could easily lead to something unbearably clichéd and mawkish – as indeed it has, in countess TV episodes and films of the hugs and life lessons variety. Thankfully, Vaughan Sivelli’s fine screenplay skilfully avoids every potential trap, even having the character of Miles (JJ Feild) pour scorn on such hollow mawkishness. It’s coupled with four great lead performances – it’s easy to believe these four have really been friends for year – to make an immensely moving film.
The ending may be seen as depressing, but while it’s undeniably very sad, I found James’s defiance in the face of the inevitable also very uplifting. My second favourite film of the Festival.

Cherry Tree Lane and Jackboots on Whitehall

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Cherry Tree Lane

Home invasion horror from Paul Andrew Williams, director of the much admired London to Brighton. Like that debut (he’s subsequently made The Cottage, which I haven’t seen) it’s a film that boasts some strong performances but is also manipulative, and has a credibility gap that makes it tough to buy into.

London to Brighton, the story of a prostitute’s attempts to protect a young girl from a gangster, lacked tension for me because I did not believe for one moment that the film was going to end with the murder of a child. Cherry Tree Lane, similarly, tries to unsettle the audience but a predictability to the plotting makes it hard to emotionally invest in the characters.

A suburban, 40ish couple (Tom Butcher and Rachael Blake) are eating at home when they are visited and tied up by three violent youths who are looking for their son. The film plays out in real time as they, and we, await the boy’s return.

The action is kept tight, the claustrophobic nature of the situation reinforced by keeping the shots largely confined to close ups. Much of the potentially upsetting images – specifically the rape of the wife by the young leader – are wisely kept offscreen, leaving us (and the husband) to mentally fill in the details. But in the climactic scenes the camera still holds back, when it should be dragging us into the thick of the horror along with the supposed viewpoint character.

Don’t be fooled into thinking this has anything to say about knife crime, youth violence or drugs culture. It’s a slasher film for middle class parents, pure and simple, and every bit as shallow and manipulative as that implies. If you accept it on these terms, the film succeeds reasonably well but for it to really work you need not to have seen Last House on the Left (others also disparagingly compared it to Funny Games). I have, and I didn’t need to see it again.

Jackboots on Whitehall

Bizarre animation that mixes It Happened Here with Team America: World Police. A starry cast, including Ewan McGregor, Rosamund Pike and Timothy Spall (as Winston Churchill) voice the Action Man/Barbie style characters in the story of a Nazi invasion of Britain following an unsuccessful evacuation of Dunkirk.

Though the film is rarely less than amusing, the jokes are far too thinly spread out – really, this is a terrific short film that’s been extended by about an hour too much. But the model characters are a joy, from big-naded hero Christopher to the Gollum/Scream style Goebbels and perpetually-smoking Churchill. Given how stiff the actual puppets are (their mouths flap, Thunderbirds style, but that’s pretty much it) they are surprisingly expressive. It all feels a bit childish though. You’re left with the feeling that it would be more fun to spend the time playing with all the fabulous little model soldiers, planes and tanks.