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Contemporary Review, Jan, 1998 by Laurence Green

The major criticism is the sheer volume of films shown. Quantity today seems more important than quality. This is all very different from when the event began as a 'festival of festivals', a small but beautiful festival conceived at a dinner party hosted by that eminent film critic, the late Dilys Powell. Of the 15 films screened in its inaugural year, there were works by Kazan, Kurosawa, Fellini, Visconti, Bergman, Clair, Wajda and Satyajit Ray. Not bad for a beginning. Yet now 41 years later you would have difficulty in finding from the vast number of films screened film makers you could put in the same category whose work will be revered nearly half a century later. Indeed one of the highspots of the festival was a tribute in his centenary year to one of the greatest directors of Hollywood's Golden Age - Frank Capra - with a screening of two of his best known films - It's A Wonderful Life and The Matinee Idol and an informative documentary on his life and career. Another notable event was the first screening in 65 years of the 'lost' Michael Powell film, His Lordship, an eccentric comedy of manners with lively, surreal musical interludes. But returning to the new films there were still discoveries to be made as well as disappointments and delights.

Sexuality and religion, freedom and constraint and love and transgression is the heady brew that fuels Udayan Prasad's My Son the Fanatic, written by Hanif Kureishi, which is built around a crisis - the crisis of a man realising that he has not been living the life he has wanted to live, but the life expected of him, a good, dutiful life, that of an immigrant wanting to establish himself in a country that he never feels entirely part of. Set in Bradford, the film is a contemporary comedy in which generational and cultural clashes disrupt the equilibrium of a British Asian household. Parvez (celebrated Indian actor Om Puri giving an excellent performance here) is a taxi driver who, after many years of living in Britain, gradually becomes alienated from his wife (Gopi Desai), family and community. His regular fares include a number of local prostitutes, one of whom (Rachel Griffiths) he has a particularly close friendship with and whom he introduces to a wealthy German businessman. Parvez's son (Akbar Kurtha) is becoming increasingly hard-line in his religious beliefs and, rebelling against what he sees as his father's immorality, he invites a religious elder to stay in the family home. Fundamentalism, thus, meets western hedonism over the kitchen table.

Although rather rough round the edges and slow at times, this is a timely and thought-provoking film that manages to be both funny and moving by turns and presents a lively view of the British Asian community and the problems of immigration and integration. The film opens commercially in the UK on February 27.

In a varied selection of New British Cinema two films in particular of contrasting merits are worth mentioning. Ironically the British Cinema Centrepiece was Simon Donald's dreary The Life of Stuff. Willie is a would-be big shot who uses his misfit mob of thugs, thieves, and no-hopers to try and scam Glasgow's top drug dealer 'Mad' Alex Renton. After putting part of his plan into operation, Willie and his argumentative associates are holed up in a crumbling dance hall. With some alcohol and bad drugs they think about the good life to come and how to dispose of some of the less essential members of the team. based on first time director Donald's play, the film betrays its theatrical origins and is very claustrophobic, lacking both involvement and interest. The viewer is treated to a series of sick jokes and savage acts that do little to illuminate character or plot. The biggest mystery about this wildly unfunny film is how it got into the London Film Festival in the first place.

This cannot be said for Gillies MacKinnon's moving and absorbing Regeneration which was one of the highlights of the festival. During the First World War, Siegfried Sassoon (James Wilby), army officer and nonconformist war poet is invalided out of the trenches in France. He is sent to an experimental psychiatric hospital in Scotland, run by an innovative psychiatrist (Jonathan Pryce), where he and his fellow officers relive their war traumas as part of a rehabilitation cure. Impressively adapted by Alan Shiach from the first novel in Pat Barker's Booker Prize-winning Ghost Road trilogy, the film, aided by fine performances, skilfully blends historical fact and fiction. Conveying the intense psychological drama of men trying to regain their ordinary humanity, whilst detailing the mixed up world of the home front as romantic relationships are rapidly formed and broken again, he vividly recreates the violence and blind savagery of the battlefield, intercut with flashbacks of the men's horrific experiences. Truly a film of considerable power.

Western is not as you might imagine a big sharpshooting, outdoor action adventure set against the rugged terrain of Montana or Wyoming but a charming, off beat French comedy. It begins with Spanish shoe salesman Paco (Sergi Lopez) being conned out of his car by forlorn traveller Nino (Sacha Bourdo), a pint-sized Russian immigrant, and before long we find the hangdog pair forming an unlikely alliance. The displaced protagonists ply their way up and down the backroads of Brittany in search of love. En route they fall for assorted women - Paco for a lovelorn female who, after a passionate fling, suggests they wait three weeks and if neither meets anyone, they should resume their relationship - and dream up misguided scams, and generally do their best to pass the time. In the final encounter Nino meets a woman with a brood of children, all by different fathers, and, after displaying his culinary skills, she becomes attracted to him. If there is a motto to the film it is that the way to a Frenchwoman's heart is through the kitchen. Peruvian born director Manuel Poirier concocts a narrative that winds all over the place, but allows plentiful stop-offs for seemingly impromptu routines - a survey on the ideal man, and a pointless but engaging pastime called 'Salut la France'. Although overlong, this entertaining road movie is handsomely shot in widescreen and colour and has two winning central performances.