The dust, as they say, has well and truly settled on this year’s Glasgow Film Festival. The line-up didn't include much in the way of 'big', mainstream-friendly titles, but it did provide plenty of enjoyable films, including Noah Baumbach’s While We’re Young, Xavier Dolan’s Mommy, and David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows. Since these movies have already been reviewed on the Empire site, let’s consider two other GFF offerings that are worth looking out for.
The first is Force Majeure, a provocative, observational marital drama that contains one of the most remarkable sequences you’ll see this year. The sequence in question takes place at a fancy Alpine ski resort, where a handsome Swedish couple — Tomas (Johannes Bah Kuhnke) and Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli) — are having lunch with their two children. Sitting on a scenic terrace, they suddenly become aware that a tidal wave of snow is cascading towards them. In a moment of panic, Tomas runs for his life, leaving Ebba and the kids behind. The avalanche doesn’t quite reach them in the end, meaning that no one is physically hurt, but on a deeper level the damage is irrevocable.
The rest of the film deals with the fallout from Tomas’s actions — or lack thereof — as it soon becomes clear that Ebba is unable to let the matter drop. What follows is hypnotic and deliberately paced, with writer-director Ruben Ostlund using long static shots to observe these characters during a number of painfully awkward scenes. Along the way, he examines masculinity and traditional gender roles (what is expected of the man, etc), forcing us to ask ourselves some very difficult questions. If you’re a man, what would you do in the same situation? If you’re a woman, how do you think your partner would react? Regardless of the answers, it’s a film that you probably shouldn’t see with your significant other.
The second festival film worth drawing your attention to is Clouds Of Sils Maria, an interesting meta drama about ageing, acting and artistic interpretation. The character dealing with all this is Maria Enders (the reliably terrific Juliette Binoche), an accomplished, middle-aged actress who is asked to star in a new production of the play that made her famous. The difference this time, however, is that she won’t be playing the young, seductive temptress — she’ll be featuring as the foolish older woman who ends up committing suicide.
Opposite Binoche is Kristen Stewart, who offers another solid post-Twilight performance as Valentine, Maria’s smartphone-juggling personal assistant. The film is pretty much a two-hander, with most scenes finding the duo engaged in long, discursive conversations. The dialogue is implausibly eloquent at times, but director Olivier Assayas makes valid points about a variety of subjects, including celebrity culture, film snobbery, and the unique relationship that actors have with the characters that they play. Some have described the film as pretentious and repetitive, others as rich and compelling. In the end, it’s all a matter of interpretation.
Written by Stephen Carty