Tale of Tales On release from 17th June
Legends don’t persist through decorum. Gory excess imprints them on historical memory along with enduring observations on human frailty, cruelty and heroism. The Neapolitan Giambattista Basile anthologised some of the most graphic in the 17th century Pentamerone. Director Matteo Garrone—whose 21st-century film about Neapolitan organised crime, Gomorrah, later spawned a television series—has taken Basile’s collection as inspiration for a powerful fantasy in his first English-language film. These are tales of power and violence, desire and delusion—watch Salma Hayek as a queen who will do anything to conceive, a heavy-hearted John C Reilly assume a monstrous quest, Vincent Cassel on a lustful rampage and Toby Jones blinded to his daughter’s needs by a bizarre infatuation. Garrone has chosen Italian locations so surreal as to seem artificial: when there’s digital enhancement (the odd ogre) it’s barely perceptible from the natural splendour. Wildly diverting fare for grown-ups.
Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach On release from 3rd June
Initially it seems like a contradiction: a documentary about filmmaker Ken Loach, still working as he approaches his 80th birthday, with his latest film I, Daniel Blake at Cannes. What’s left to know? Loach has been controversial and celebrated for half a century. Treasure or threat? Self-effacing or aggressive? Louise Osmond’s film plays on the paradoxes from the outset. Though the format of archive extracts from the work plus new interviews is conventional, the account of old battles—Cathy Come Home, the films with Jim Allen for the BBC in the 1970s, Perdition at the Royal Court—is both a vivid reminder of post-war British politics and a revealing dissection of how Loach’s views solidified. Affectionate it might be, but this is no hagiography.
When Marnie Was There On release from 10th June
In 1967 British author Joan G Robinson published a novel for young adults that was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki placed it among his list of 50 recommended children’s stories, along with works by Ursula Le Guin and Frances Hodgson Burnett. Transposed from Norfolk to the Japanese salt marshes, this tale of ghostly friendship and fluid timeslips has been filmed by Miyazaki alumnus Hiromasa Yonebayashi. The animation is haunting with whimsy kept at bay by the complexity of the central character Anna, a plausibly troubled teen.
Legends don’t persist through decorum. Gory excess imprints them on historical memory along with enduring observations on human frailty, cruelty and heroism. The Neapolitan Giambattista Basile anthologised some of the most graphic in the 17th century Pentamerone. Director Matteo Garrone—whose 21st-century film about Neapolitan organised crime, Gomorrah, later spawned a television series—has taken Basile’s collection as inspiration for a powerful fantasy in his first English-language film. These are tales of power and violence, desire and delusion—watch Salma Hayek as a queen who will do anything to conceive, a heavy-hearted John C Reilly assume a monstrous quest, Vincent Cassel on a lustful rampage and Toby Jones blinded to his daughter’s needs by a bizarre infatuation. Garrone has chosen Italian locations so surreal as to seem artificial: when there’s digital enhancement (the odd ogre) it’s barely perceptible from the natural splendour. Wildly diverting fare for grown-ups.
Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach On release from 3rd June
Initially it seems like a contradiction: a documentary about filmmaker Ken Loach, still working as he approaches his 80th birthday, with his latest film I, Daniel Blake at Cannes. What’s left to know? Loach has been controversial and celebrated for half a century. Treasure or threat? Self-effacing or aggressive? Louise Osmond’s film plays on the paradoxes from the outset. Though the format of archive extracts from the work plus new interviews is conventional, the account of old battles—Cathy Come Home, the films with Jim Allen for the BBC in the 1970s, Perdition at the Royal Court—is both a vivid reminder of post-war British politics and a revealing dissection of how Loach’s views solidified. Affectionate it might be, but this is no hagiography.
When Marnie Was There On release from 10th June
In 1967 British author Joan G Robinson published a novel for young adults that was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki placed it among his list of 50 recommended children’s stories, along with works by Ursula Le Guin and Frances Hodgson Burnett. Transposed from Norfolk to the Japanese salt marshes, this tale of ghostly friendship and fluid timeslips has been filmed by Miyazaki alumnus Hiromasa Yonebayashi. The animation is haunting with whimsy kept at bay by the complexity of the central character Anna, a plausibly troubled teen.
