London Film Festival review - The Fear of 13

After two decades on death row, Nick Yarris wrote to the judge dealing with his case and asked to be executed. What makes a man do that? In this mesmerising documentary, Yarris tells his story straight to camera.

His tale is heartbreaking, gripping and inspiring by turns. British director David Sington carefully reveals the details, keeping the audience hooked. The use of subtle and haunting reconstructions adds to the experience, but you can’t help feeling that the bulk of the credit should go to Nick himself. He is an excellent storyteller. His use of language is quite literary and almost floral in places, a side effect of educating himself through books in his cell.  Watching quite a few documentaries about the American justice system in the last few years. I have learnt two things. One, when being interrogated by the cops, don’t say anything except “I want a lawyer”. And two, being on death row is an excellent way to become incredibly eloquent and poetic.

Nick is a deep thinker with a soul open to emotions and experience. Listening to him describing the wonder he felt in the tiniest sounds and scents (which are all he was afforded in solitary confinement) really makes you see the world around you in a new way. He really plays your heartstrings like a harp, telling tales that seem straight out of The Shawshank Redemption but are true. Can you imagine anything better than that?

The Fear of 13 will get a limited UK release on the 10^th November, and has been part funded by BBC Storyville so will probably be on TV sometime soon. I really can’t recommend seeing it enough. I’d particularly suggest going to see it at select Vue cinemas on the 11^th, to see an exclusive Q&A afterwards. If it’s anything like the Q&A at the showing I went to, it will be worth it.

London Film Festival review - Chronic

Michael Cristofer and Tim Roth share a rare laugh

Oh I do love Tim Roth. And not just because he is Mr Orange (though I went through a rather obsessive Tarantino phase as a teenager, so that is a significant achievement in my eyes). It’s always worth seeing his films because he chooses such interesting projects, and usually gives pretty interesting performances. And Chronic is no exception.

Roth plays David, a nurse caring for the terminally ill in their homes, who seems to be getting a little too involved with his patients. Now, palliative care is not a subject often depicted in film, what with how uncomfortable it makes the viewer feel. Writer/director Michel Franco has really made up for this historic shortage with Chronic. The film is mostly made up of a series of long, static shots of David washing, moving and feeding patients. The voyeuristic feeling is a little disconcerting, but the film really shows how gentle, slow, boring and beautiful caring can be.  

Unlike, say, the recent film Nightcrawler, this is not the study of a creepy loner that perhaps it seems to be at the start. I think the more you find out about David, the less creepy he is. Roth’s understated performance is of course excellent, managing to build a picture of a troubled soul with very little dialogue, and instead mostly through quiet and calm movements. 

One interesting aspect of the film is its setting, or perhaps its lack thereof. While obviously set in Southern California, this very familiar place is made to feel very anonymous. Franco is Mexican, and this could just as easily have been set in Mexico, Britain (Roth keeps his English accent, which oddly no characters comment on) or anywhere else in the world. This film definitely has a very international feel.

Although very slow, Chronic is a mood piece that is, perhaps surprisingly, never boring. The ending did annoy me, though, and just seems so unnecessary. A less eventful ending would have been much more effective than the one we are given, and would have suited the loose, ambiguous nature of the film. This is a pity, as it almost spoils a quietly moving character piece about a topic that is often overlooked. 

London Film Festival review - Nasty Baby

Silva and Wiig contemplate parenthood in Nasty Baby.

Set in the same hipster-ful Brooklyn seen in Girls and the films of Noah Baumbach, Nasty Baby follows artist Freddy (played by writer/director Sebastián Silva) and his boyfriend Mo (Tunde Adebimpe) as they attempt to have a baby with Freddy’s best friend Polly (the wonderful Kristen Wiig in a refreshingly low-key role).

What starts off as a genuinely funny and touching look at characters dealing with life’s disappointments becomes something quite different, as sinister undertones begin to creep in. Although it purports to be a true story, luckily it was just inspired by a few different experiences and thoughts Silva has had. 

The film was part of the “Debate” strand at the festival. I think many people would struggle to find any messages behind Nasty Baby and just write it off as self-consciously weird and clumsy. The Toronto Film Festival apparently refused to show the film unless the ending was changed. I wouldn’t go that far, as though I agree that it was a bit clumsy, I did get something out of the latter part of the film, even though it is so different from the more enjoyable and safer beginning.  I liked the examination here of the darkness that lies within people, and the fragile façade of order that we have in society. 

But when it comes down to it, I’m not clear whether the overall message is that “Some people deserve to live more than others”, or “Some people think they deserve to live more than others”, which are really quite different lines for a film to take. Perhaps Silva is leaving that up to the audience to decide, just to add to our general discomfort.