Independent Cinema for Everyone

With Tár screening at Plymouth Arts Cinema this week, Helen Tope takes a deep dive into classical music in cinema.  Dramatic swathes of score, larger-than-life personalities – it’s little wonder that cinema has repeatedly turned to classical music for inspiration. While it is hard to imagine Brief Encounter without the romantic swell of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.2, or A Clockwork Orange without the incongruous insertion of Rossini’s William Tell Overture, where it gets really interesting is when film decides to examine the creators and interpreters of the classical world.... Continue Reading

There are few books with such a reputation as D.H Lawrence’s final novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover. It has become a byword for literary lasciviousness: the fiercely erotic affair between aristocrat Lady Chatterley and her gamekeeper, Mellors, is firmly embedded (pun intended) into our popular culture. In a new film adaptation, French director Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre reconfigures the novel into its historical and political context. The book begins in the last years of the First World War. Constance and Clifford Chatterley have just married before his return to the Front. Connie (played by Emma Corrin) is from a well-connected but bohemian family ... Continue Reading

Reframing the Emily Bronte story from a revisionist perspective, Frances O’Connor’s biopic steps away from the traditional adaptation and into a blend of truth and myth. The film shapes the complex, sobering elements of the Bronte biography for a younger audience. Casting Sex Education’s Emma Mackey in the lead role, O’Connor’s screenplay focuses on the events leading up to Bronte writing her novel, Wuthering Heights. We meet the Bronte siblings as young adults: Charlotte, Emily and Anne still live at home in Haworth Parsonage, Yorkshire. Their brother, Branwell, is the great hope of the family and is sent off on various enterprises. ... Continue Reading

A truly innovative piece of film-making, the Afro-futurist musical Neptune Frost is daring and transgressive. Pitched in Burundi, one of the world’s poorest nations, Neptune Frost conceives an alternate reality, a few years from now. Brothers Matalusa (played by rapper Kaya Free) and Tekno (Robert Ninteretse) work in an open-pit Coltan mine – the mineral used to power smartphones. The workers sing as they dig, but they are supervised by guards who dish out brutal punishments. Tekno – a dreamer, unsuited for this work – briefly pauses to imagine himself in another dimension. A guard whacks him with the butt of ... Continue Reading

In the year that marks the 80th anniversary of his death, the documentary Eric Ravilious: Drawn to War examines the life and legacy of the artist.  Painter, engraver and designer: Eric Ravilious has, until recently, been English Art’s best kept secret. His work has undergone a reappraisal over the past few years, with the documentary confirming Ravilious’ status as one of our most important artists. His watercolours – including Beachy Head, Westbury Horse and Tea at Furlongs – are at first glance dream-like, pastoral scenes of English life. The documentary ... Continue Reading

Elvis Presley – the man and the music – reached a level of fame almost unattainable prior to the digital age. A truly domestic artist (he never toured abroad), at the time of his death in 1977, Presley was the most famous man in the world. Reviewed by Helen Tope It is what this fame requires, the oxygen it needs to sustain itself, that is at the centre of Baz Luhrmann’s biopic, Elvis. Our access to the star is through his manager, the irrepressible Colonel Tom Parker (played by Tom Hanks) who narrates throughout. While Parker ... Continue Reading

Everything Everywhere All at Once is a genre-busting sci-fi adventure. The story starts simply enough. Chinese-American laundromat owner Evelyn Wang (played by Michelle Yeoh) is exhausted. Between looking after her elderly father and keeping a failing business afloat, her personal relationships have also begun to suffer. Not only is her husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) planning to ask for a divorce, her daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu) has recently come out to her family and the tensions between Joy and Evelyn threaten a permanent rift. On top of all this, Evelyn is surrounded by receipts and paperwork: their taxes are ... Continue Reading