Sex, Leins & Videotape #11. Paignton film critic Tom Leins presents the first of two weekly DVD columns. Pop back on Friday for Part 2!
Famously described by Quentin Tarantino as his favourite movie of the year, Frozen River (Axiom) has a lot to live up to! Impressively enough, first-time director Courtney Hunt delivers the goods, and this distinctly chilly thriller is an understated gem.
Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo) is a downtrodden trailer-park mom, struggling to make end’s meet after her shifty gambling addict husband ran off with the money that they had scraped together to buy a new Double-Wide trailer. Her attempts to locate him lead her to a bingo hall on a nearby Mohawk reservation, where she quickly clashes with Lila Littlejohn (Misty Upham), a stubborn young woman who has just helped herself to Troy’s abandoned car.
In an attempt to wriggle out of trouble, Lila lets Ray in a lucrative people smuggling scam – transporting illegal immigrants across the frozen St Lawrence River between Quebec, Canada and New York State. Initially reluctant, Ray soon embraces this dangerous scheme, only to stumble headlong into all manner of trouble. To its enormous credit, Frozen River resists the temptation to lurch into full-blown Hollywood thriller territory, instead edging nervously towards a less clear-cut but more emotionally satisfying conclusion. All in all, Frozen River is a breathtakingly sad, richly imagined story pieced together with enviable narrative flair. Impressive stuff.
Another, equally revered art-house movie is 35 Shots of Rum (New Wave Films) 
, a delicate, thoughtful drama set in contemporary Paris. Taciturn Lionel (Alex Descas) is a widowed African immigrant who lives in a tower-block with his radiant daughter Josephine (Mati Diop). The pair share a close bond, and, during the early stages of the movie the true nature of their relationship remains unclear. As the film unfolds we meet their surrogate family – near neighbours Gabrielle (a feisty taxi-driver who seems to be Lionel’s ex-lover) and laconic world traveller Noe (whose infatuation with Josephine clearly torments both him and Lionel).
Despite her unusual version of domestic bliss, Josephine is increasingly conflicted – she yearns to experience life outside her trusted circle, but she can’t bear to distance herself from her doting father. This stifling sense of intimacy threatens to bubble over at any moment, and both sexual and familial tensions simmer just below the surface. Acclaimed director Claire Denis provides a fluid, unpredictable narrative that delights in wrong-footing viewers at regular opportunities. Furthermore, the movie benefits from a languid score courtesy of exiled Brits Tindersticks, which adds a drowsily attractive flavour to the melting pot. Enigmatic, nuanced and graceful – 35 Shots of Rum is a lovely little slice of world cinema gold.
Set in 2055, The Age of Stupid (Dogwoof) is more unsettling than any dystopian sci-fi movie… Pete Postlethwaite stars as The Archivist, an old man living alone in an environmentally ravaged version of the future. Holed up in an Arctic research facility, The Archivist presides over a storage system containing all of humanity’s achievements – in the hope that our devastated planet might one day be habitable once more. From this quirky standpoint The Archivist offers up six different stories, all of which illustrate glaring environmental flaws in 21st century society.
If this narrative gimmick seems like an acquired taste, it is, but the real meat is in The Archivist’s dispiriting stories. Subjects include: Shell Nigeria’s exploitative conduct in oil-rich Africa, the perils of low cost airlines as well as four other horror stories. World-weary Pete Postlethwaite is effective as our curmudgeonly guide and his familiar face is constantly creased with exasperation. The other participants’ barely-contained fury frequently erupts into bitterness, and it is easy to see why. As you might expect, the overriding question is: “Why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?”
Like An Inconvenient Truth before it, The Age of Stupid will surely be preaching to the converted, rather than banging sense into the numb-skulls who continue to destroy our planet. Still, if the movie can achieve similar cross-over success it will be taking a big step in the right direction. Depressing, thought-provoking stuff.
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