Hands up all those who know and live Michael Lonsdale. Who some of you may ask? I think he is one of the more underrated actors with a long and distinguished career going back to the 60’s. He starred in Is Paris Burning and The Bride Wore Black in the early 60’s but his breakout movie was The Day of the Jackal in 1973 in which he played the French inspector who tracks down and kills Edward Fox as the assassin. Last year he starred in Of Gods and Men a wonderful French film about a small group of monks in an Algerian village and this year he is an elderly priest in another French film about illegal immigrants. He is a French actor of English descent and is fluent in both French and English making him a very versatile resource. A brilliant character actor who deserves recognition from The Academy but sadly will likely never get it. This small movie is about a priest whose church has been deconsecrated leaving him with no congregation or purpose. He fears he is losing his faith and with it all the meaning in his life which has until then been dedicated to the poor community he has served. Shortly after the church is shuttered and locked it is invaded by a small group of illegal African immigrants who are being hunted by the police. The old priest gives them sanctuary and hides them despite the fact that they may also harbour terrorists. An interesting theme this year is the number of European films dealing with illegal immigration and the moral challenge it poses for countries like Italy and France specifically. From Le Havre, which takes a light but still humane angle on the theme, to this more serious film, the moral and personal implications of this increasingly difficult challenge are explored intelligently. This issue will continue to grow in the coming years due to climate change and what is really the beginning of an enormous human migration. We can expect to see more on this topic in documentaries and dramas in the years to come. We must all pay attention and not trivialize this issue. The film makes a powerful statement about this.

After light and airy I hit serious and intense. Rebellion is a fictionalized account of real events about a French commando team charged with negotiating the release of hostages in an uprising in the jungles of the French colony of New Caledonia in 1988. It is election time in France and the politics have an impact on everything the lead negotiator tries to do. It is a fast-paced, action-filled but thoughtful film about the reality of war and revolution. Ten years in the making because of the still very sensitive nature of the situation and politicians who are mostly all alive and active, it took great courage to do but manages to present the story as accurately and unromantically as possible. Mathieu Kassovitz is the director, writer and lead actor in what is truly a tour de force of film making. He was there for the Q and A and we learned a great deal about the struggle to create the movie. They got absolutely no help from the French armed forces who did not want the story told. The man about whom the film is made did help since he had left the army largely over the outcome of this event. It is a hard story of trust and betrayal and while the hero of the film did his job and followed orders, his conscience would not let him continue. One of the things that totally surprized me was that throughout the film helicopters are used to transport men and supplies but in fact they had no access to any helicopters. The used wooden and cardboard models and CGI to do the scenes. You cannot tell at all which is what makes this one of the most remarkable aspects of the movie. Rather than using CGI to create dinosaurs and robots and other fantastical effects, this film used the technology to a truly artistic end. Fantastic. This is French film with subtitles and while I have dismissed French cinema in the past – I highly recommend this movie.

Simply the best movie I have seen this week and maybe the best movie at the Festival and maybe the best movie of the year. I loved this film as you can see. It is a dramatization of the story of Burmese political activist and leader Aung San Suu Kyi over 15 years of her life struggling to bring democracy to Burma. It is also about her love for her English husband and children who support her throughout her isolation and house arrest in Burma. Separated for years from her family she hangs on to their love and her love of her country. It is brilliantly acted by Michelle Yeoh and David Thewlis (who is also in Anonymous) both of whom deserve Oscars for their work. The director and writer did not know the woman whose story they were telling but they researched it thoroughly and clearly did a great job. They filmed it in Thailand primarily but many shots were from Burma where members of the crew travelled incognito as tourists and shot film with their Nikon cameras. They reconstructed the home in which she was under arrest off and on for nearly 15 years to perfection and filmed in the actual home the family shared in Oxford.

The director and writer were there for a Q and A and were congratulated by members of the audience who knew The Lady herself and remarked how perfectly Yeoh played her, how true to the story the film was and how evocative of the struggle and ongoing struggle to bring democracy to Burma. The plea of Aung San Suu Kyi at the end of the film is to the audience to use their liberty to bring the same to the people of Burma. The audience gave a rare standing ovation at the end of the film.

Yes we should work to free the people of Burma and encourage our government to lead this struggle but there is also a message to all the bored and jaded voters of our own country not to take their right to vote for granted and exercise it every chance they have. When one sees a film like this and watches the sacrifices people make to exercise the right to vote there is simply no excuse for any of us to remain unengaged in our own democracy.

This was the first costume drama of the week and really a lot of fun. It is a tale of Elizabethan court intrigue layered over the theory that Shakespeare’s plays were really written by the Earl of Oxford – Edward De Vere. Ben Johnson is the go between carrying the plays to the Globe theatre where a rather poor but wily actor William Shakespeare took all the credit. The movie is directed by Robert Emmerich who has done such classics 😛 as 2012, 10,000 B.C., The Day After Tomorrow and Independence Day. The latter is classic trash but the others are not so great. So this movie is bit a of a change for him although he plays fast and loose with the history and even the “Shakespeare didn’t really write those plays” theories. Nonetheless he creates a great atmosphere and has some good actors to work with including Vanessa Redgrave and Elizabeth, Rhys Ifans as the Earl and Sebastian Armesto as Ben Jonson. Although it doesn’t have any aliens seeking to destroy the world or other cataclysmic events and it’s a bit long and over dramatic, basically I liked it. If it’s a cold night out this winter and you have nothing else to do then definitely do up some popcorn and enjoy this bit of fluff.