Rialto Channel’s A Celebration of Cannes wraps up with this week with two must see films; Swedish satirical comedy Force Majeure and excellent coming of age drama Girlhood. As sad as it is to see May come to an end, there’s plenty on offer throughout June to look forward to including the much lauded television shows This is England ’90 and The Last Panthers starirng Samantha Morton and John Hurt. Also throughout June, Willie Los’e presents a collection of sports documentaries including the fabulous New Zealand documentary The Ground We Won.  

And, here are my highlights for the week.

Rialto Channel’s A Celebration of Cannes wraps up with this week with two must see films; Swedish satirical comedy Force Majeure and excellent coming of age drama Girlhood. As sad as it is to see May come to an end, there’s plenty on offer throughout June to look forward to including the much lauded television shows This is England ’90 and The Last Panthers starirng Samantha Morton and John Hurt. Also throughout June, Willie Los’e presents a collection of sports documentaries including the fabulous New Zealand documentary The Ground We Won.  

And, here are my highlights for the week.

Force Majeure …Monday 30^th May, 8.30pm

Force Majeure is a psychodrama and satirical comedy about the unraveling of a marriage from Swedish director Ruben Östlund. The film screened at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, and instantly everyone was talking about this original relationship drama.

Most films like to build up to their most dramatic or impressive scene but in Östlund’s film that moment comes about ten minutes into the film when an avalanche threatens to take out our main characters; a Swedish family on a skiing holiday in the French Alps. The rest of the film deals with the way in which the parents handled the event – one protected their children, the other chose self preservation. The family survives physically, but psychologically, they’re seriously damaged.

Force Majeure is an intimate film. We pretty much go on holiday with Tomas (Johannes Bah Kuhnke) and Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli), and their two annoying kids, and we’re part of that moment when a couple have a fundamental difference of opinion that changes the way they see each other. It makes for uncomfortable and often bleak viewing, and yet Östlund’s film also possesses a dark comedic sensibility, meaning we’re aloud to have a chuckled along the way.

Force Majuere might at first seems a simple, quiet film, but everything in this film is deliberate and considered from the decor to the sound track (or lack of it) and the framing of shots. Östlund likes to shoot his films from afar using a high-resolution digital video, and then in post-production choose his framing and camera moves. It makes for a film that’s both observation and personal. If you can work out where the camera is placed in the bathroom scenes, let me know!

Girlhood… Tuesday 31^st May, 8.30pm

Girlhood is the final film in French director Celine Sciamma unintentional Trilogy of Youth. Sciamma’s previous films Water Lilies and Tomboy explored the life of adolescent and pre adolescent characters, and the theme continues in Girlhood, an authentic coming of age story about a 16 year old girl trying to find her way in the world.

Set on the outskirts of Paris in the projects, the film follows Marieme (Karidja Touré) a 16 year old, French African girl who just wants to be normal. Instead, she’s failing at school due to having to look after her younger sisters while her mother works all hours of the day, and is regularly beaten by her older, controlling brother. Fed up Marieme decides to leave school and befriends a gang of three girls who take her under their wing. Just when you think the tough but tender Marieme is going to be lead astray, she begins making decisions for herself, as she tries to figure out who she is, and who she wants to be. In the end, self determination is what matters.

Girlhood is an extraordinary film about gang life, friendships, gender, class and race and it’s brought to life by a largely non-professional cast who were discovered in malls and train stations – or in Touré’s case at an amusement park. The young Touré is particularly good, and convincingly tells her story through nuanced gesture and movement as well as words. She was nominated for a César Award for Most Promising Actress, and next year appears in Czech/French coproduction Skokan.





This is England ‘90…Sunday 5^th June, 8.30pm

We’ve already lived through the movie This is England, as well as two television series, This is England ‘86 and This is England ’88, and now it’s time to catch up with Lol, Milky, Woody and the rest of the gang, possibly for the last time, in This is England ’90.  

Written and directed by the series creator Shane Meadows, this four part series is set around the seasons starting off in spring. It’s a working class saga that looks at the lives of a group of friends from Sheffield who started out as a band of skinheads in 1983, and now are trying to find their feet as young adults.

Meadows knows how to capture the spirit of the time, and in this film he captures the growing influence of Manchester on the British music scene, and all that goes along with the emergence of the rave. There’s plenty here to have you reminiscing about your life in the 90s and life before the Internet and mobile phones.

This is England is a series that celebrates and documents the life of the dinner ladies, the unemployed, the drug dealers and those just trying to get by. These series have always packed a punch and retained a sense of hope, and while there’s a fraction too much slow-motion sentimentality in this third series, it’s still engaging television.