LA BELLE EPOQUE. Dir. Nicolas Bedos. 2019

Imagine if you could be taken back, to re-enact your most special memory? Could surrendering to your fantasy be dangerous?

Two couples; one middle-aged, with love gone sour, and the other young and creative, who are tormenting each other with the intensity of their passion. All of them are on personal journeys.

Fanny Ardant plays Marianne, a career woman enthusiastic about the present and future, with depressed husband Victor (Daniel Auteuil) who is alienated by digi-tech, and a constant irritant to his wife. Actress Margot (Doria Tiller) and Antoine (Guillaume Canet) are also driving each other crazy.

Antoine is a brilliant entrepreneur, directing a historical reconstruction company, selling clients the chance to live their dreams. Victor accepts his invitation to re-live the evening in 1974 when he met his wife, to a simpler time when ‘people talked to each other.’

This is a clever, charming, and very funny film, well-crafted with excellent writing and direction, and terrific acting throughout. Insightful and surprising screenplay, with its fine observations of human behaviour, it is also touching, wise and compassionate. Highly recommended.

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HARRIET. Dir. Kasi Lemmons. 2019

Astonishing true story of early freedom fighter, Harriet Tubman, enslaved in the Southern states of America. Despite her marriage to a freeborn African-American, she was unable to protect any of their hoped-for children from being born into that same slavery, and being owned by the farm proprietor. Her overpowering sense of injustice compelled her to act. She escapes, and eventually becomes one of America’s great heroes. Her audacity is astonishing, the level of courage she sustained, her extraordinary tenacity and physical endurance, not to mention cunning and excellent planning. One of those qualities would be worthy of high praise but she is exceptional for having all of them, created by her determination to rescue her family and then other captives. She was responsible for the escape of almost 300 slaves Her religious faith was absolute and she felt guided by God to help others, aided by Abolitionists and free African-Americans. Filmed in glorious colour, with deft

THE KINDERGARTEN TEACHER. Dir. Sara Colangelo. 2018.

In this story of transgression and loss, Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Lisa, a dedicated, kindly teacher of 5 year olds. She yearns for creative expression and attends a poetry evening class but is frustrated with her writing. One of the children in her class, Jimmy, begins to pace back and forth across the classroom speaking lines whilst in an apparent trance, as though he is channelling words of an experienced wisdom beyond his years. His poetic nature excites her as he speaks from feeling rather than from thinking, or over thinking, as she does with her own attempts at poetry. Lisa fixates on his words, racing to scribble down every utterance, to capture his lines before they are lost forever. However, it is troubling that, at her evening class, she presents one of his poems as her own work. It is well received, and she repeats this theft of creative copyright and intellectual property the following week. The film suggests that her own latent talent was crushed by the everyday,

STYX. Dir. Wolfgang Fischer. 2018

Watching Styx is an uncomfortable experience throughout, and a film that raises many questions. The film outline has told us exactly what to expect so there’s no surprise when Rike spots the stricken vessel overloaded with refugees, after she has been happily sailing, reading, enjoying her solitude, and anticipating reaching the scientifically created paradise. Rike (Susanne Wolff) is an emergency doctor working in Gibraltar who has set sail on a solo voyage to Ascension Island, part of the British Overseas Territory. Previously barren land, the British introduced trees and non-indigenous planting; now there is lush bamboo and the Green Mountain (cloud) Forest, and she is intrigued by the idea of this fully functioning artificial ecosystem created by Charles Darwin, Joseph Hooker (explorer and botanist) and the Royal Navy from around 1843. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution describes the process of natural selection and survival of the fittest yet, in creating the self-sustaining and

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