French Cinema: Les Confins du monde (To the Ends of the World) film review

Les Confins du monde is directed by Guillaume Nicloux and stars Gaspard Ulliel, Guillaume Gouix, Lang Khê Tran and Gérard Depardieu.

Set during the volatile days of France's colonization of Indochina, most specifically Vietnam, Les Confins du monde follows a soldier on his quest to avenge his brother’s violent murder.

Beautifully shot, Les Confins du monde uses lingering shots on sumptuous jungles and beautifully framed quiet conversations suffused with poeticism to juxtapose with moments of extreme violence and gore.

The opening of the film is a brilliant example of this. The ghostly calm, represented by Ulliel’s Tassen sitting alone with people drifting past in a misty army post, a colour palette of pale blues, greys and greens suddenly becomes a contortion of bodies rendered in deep reds, oranges and rich green. A mass grave of bleeding corpses.

This is a shock to the system, a glimpse at the horrors of war and the film to come. This abrupt shift from peace to violence also represents the nature of guerilla warfare; a moment of solitude and silence very quickly descends into chaos and death.

The narrative of Les Confins du monde is very evocative of Apocalypse Now, and Tassen teeters on the edge of becoming a Colonel Kurtz figure as he obsessively hunts for a revolutionary figure waging a guerilla war against French occupation and Japanese invaders whom he deems responsible for the death and mutilation of his brother and his brother’s wife.

Tassen also falls in love with a Vietnamese prostitute, but his love manifests as control and psychological punishment, and his relationships with his fellow soldiers don’t fair much better.

He is poisoned by the need to avenge; he isolates those around him and breaks rules and causes many to die. It’s a brutal film, and the story sort of just fades off towards the end, symbolising that Tassen will probably never find the man he is hunting and that his whole journey is in the end completely futile.

«Le deuil est une drôle d'épreuve. Un jour, on croit en être sorti, et puis non... Il est toujours là, incrusté avec sa colère»

“Grief is a strange ordeal. One day we think we’re cured, but no… it’s still there indivisible from our anger”

Another central theme to the film is that of grief, Tassen is grieving, but he is blinded by rage and PTSD after being the sole survivor of a massacre. He has quiet conversations with Saintonge, a writer who asserts that he is on no one’s side, that he has fallen in love with Vietnam and its people, but who is ultimately crippled by grief.

Tassen is almost disgusted by Saintonge, by his defeat and continues on his journey. With each loss of life around him, Tassen contorts into a more savage, cruel and empty version of himself. This in itself is what makes the film interesting to watch, the study of a broken man on a deadly and endless quest.

Film Review: Sorry to Bother You

Sorry to Bother You is a satirical masterpiece tackling capitalism and racism simultaneously. The film was directed by Boots Riley in his debut behind the camera and stars Lakeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson, Danny Glover, Steven Yeun, Omari Hardwick and Armie Hammer.

This film is beyond wacky like it is a trip and a half. Yet it feels so relevant right now because of how linked it is with our current reality. Capitalism is critiqued through the adverts Cassius sees on TV and around his neighbourhood, the evil corporation ‘WorryFree’ is a modern incarnation of the slave trade and to truly escalate his career Cassius adopts a “White voice” as a telemarketer.

The concept of the “White Voice” is really quite terrifying, a white supremacist construct that serves to restrict black voices. Before adopting this voice, Cassius is unsuccessful in selling to a predominantly white public, but as soon as he uses this “White Voice”, he connects with them and starts racking up the sales!

Yeun’s character Squeeze also starts a union to protest against unfair working conditions and terrible pay, which also fits in with how 0-hour contracts, discrimination and dehumanisation occur in workplaces within our reality.

These critiques of society are so cleverly woven into the narrative, and the humour is just so brilliant, I think I could gush about how absolutely original and funny and important this film is for hours. It is definitely a new favourite, and I can’t wait to see what Riley does next as a Director!

The costume design and just the general aesthetics of this film really stand out, especially with the character Detroit, Cash’s girlfriend played by the always brilliant Tessa Thompson. She wears custom earrings and clothes with political and feminist messages, her hair is dyed several different colours and her makeup defies convention. She is an artist through and through and I love how expressive her costuming is, she is an iconic character and I loved how independent she is.

With the Black Lives Matter movement gaining massive traction this past month after the awful murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd this year, it is important for Black voices to be amplified and given a space to shine. One of the best places for this to happen to reach a wide range of people is in the film industry.

Movies are so influential; they can inspire, they can celebrate, and they can educate, and a film like Sorry to Bother You does all three. Riley, alongside other Black Directors like Spike Lee, Steve McQueen, Barry Jenkins, Ryan Coogler and Jordan Peele are making fantastic films right now that challenge how White Hollywood is, so get watching!

My next step is to seek out Black Female Directors, as the film industry, in general, is dominated by male voices. So far, I’ve added Ava DuVernay, Melina Matsoukas, Chinonye Chukwu, Wanuri Kahiu and Mati Diop to my list, but if you have a favourite Black Female Director, then feel free to share with everyone in the comments section.

Korean Cinema - 부산행 (Train to Busan) Review

Setting a Zombie film on a train (from Seoul to Busan) is a genius move, it’s a new spin on a genre which is swiftly becoming unoriginal. With such a setting the whole feeling of the film becomes claustrophobic and hectic seeing as there’s not much space to run and hide in a moving vehicle. Also considering the fact that the film is set on public transport most of the characters are unfamiliar with each other outside of the people they are travelling with, this then separates the good from the bad and we quickly warm to the strangers who band together and help each other out and we grow to hate the selfish characters (namely Kim Eui-sung‘s villain Yon-suk) that compromise everyone else’s safety for their own.

Having seen Gong Yoo in the fantastic drama Goblin I was very much aware of his proficiency as an actor but from watching Train to Busan I was yet again impressed as I didn’t expect the film to become so emotional. Gong Yoo’s Seok-Woo started the film off as a relatively unlikable guy, a divorced workaholic with very little time for his young child but through the trials of trying to survive a mass zombie apocalypse, he slowly becomes the hero that you root for. In a way his character development reminds me of Alan Grant’s in Jurassic Park (disliked the kids to begin with but became a hero and saved them and became a father figure to them in the end), he is a man who absolutely has no time for others and is put out by his own child in the beginning but by the end of it he has become somewhat of a model father to his daughter. It’s in creating this character juxtaposition that makes the journey you take with Seok-Woo all that more investing especially at the conclusion of the film.

However, I do have one criticism of the film and that is the particular sequence involving the tunnels and the darkness it creates as this was something that was used in Snowpeircer another Korean film. It was still a cool sequence but having seen it used before it didn’t make as much of an impact as it would have if it were an entirely new idea.

Overall I really enjoyed the film and I was pleasantly surprised that the film had such an emotional depth to it to the point that I actually cried at the end which is something I have never done when watching a Zombie film.