10/06/2016 The Film Review

They are at the team base in Lyon, before they head to Nice to face

group. We are going to have the rest of the day 's sport as well.

That's coming up at 6:30pm with me, Ollie Foster, Euro 2016

But now it's time for The Film Review.

What Mac to The Film Review, and taking us through the week was

summer releases, Mark Kermode. This is an interesting week. We have race

of the serpent, which was nominated for the best foreign-language film

Oscar. We have When Marnie Was There. And Michael Moore is back

with Where To Invade Next? Let's start with embrace of the serpent. A

mixture of fact and fiction described by the diaries of two

explorers who ventured into the Amazon, decades apart. The film

fictionalise as their journey but sees it from the point of view of an

indigenous tribes person who has played in two stages of his life by

two separate actors. The first of the explorers comes in search of a

plant to you an illness which he has developed. The second of the

Explorers is Evan who meets up with a guide to retrace his steps and

make the same pilgrimage. This is a clip.

The thing I love about this film was that it was an attempt to meld

western narrative and Amazonian myth, and it does that brilliantly.

You have a story of the Explorers, and another story based on this idea

also less teen -- celestial beings coming down to earth on a giant

Anaconda. It has these two separate time periods that flow in and out of

each other, like boats floating upon the same river. It looks

astonishing. You can see from the clips were watching, beautiful black

and white cinematography. It has an extraordinary soundtrack mixing

low-key music, some of it sounding like the old recordings of

indigenous songs, blended with the strains of nature. On one hand it is

a political tale about the evils of colonialism, on the other hand it is

magical realist fable about so much more than that. What I love about it

is that it does what cinema does at its best, to take you to another

world, to see the world through different eyes. I was really bowled

over by it. It is one of my favourite films of the year. I would

be surprised if it is not my best of the year. It is called Embrace Of

The Serpent. I would encourage anybody to track it down. What about

When Marnie Was There, something quite different, and animation. This

is adaptation of the 1970 -- 1967 story by JG Robinson about a young

girl who goes to stay with relatives and finds friendship in a strange,

mysterious house and she develops a relationship with this girl called

Marnie. Is she a ghost, projection, is she a wish? You believe in her

totally, because you believe in the story as told by the phone. The

animation is beautiful. The drawings are wonderful. It is one of those

films that manages to engage young and old alike. You genuinely feel

that you could watch with a wide range of audiences. It is

intelligent and sensitive, it contains universal truths, it is one

thing, it is funny, there was one moment in it which seems like a

playful nod towards Hitchcock. I was a huge fan of it. It is available in

an English language dub. If you don't have a problem with subtitles,

seek out the original version. Now we go to Michael Moore, and Where To

Invade Next? . He is best known for Bowling for Columbine. This is a

polemic documentary. He visits a number of countries under the guise

of, because he's American, he's going to invade these countries and

then steal from them some ideas, in France he sees things about healthy

eating in schools, and workers' rights in Germany. Here is a clip.

If your employer pays you for all of this time of? -- time off.

Where To Invade Next? -- THEY SPEAK ITALIAN. Italians have one of the

highest life expectancy is in the world. They live four years longer

than the average American. The strange thing about this film, it

has many ideas that I agree with, workers' rights, children's rights,

women's rights. Philosophically I am completely in tune with the film.

But there is this ongoing comedic conceit that Michael Moore is going

there with this flag, he has to invade these other countries, at the

beginning he says this is what I'm going to do. It is not a very good

joke. He then proceeds to do it for the duration of the film. There are

these interesting ways of looking at the way that societies look after

their populations in a way that is perhaps superior to the way America

does it, but these comic interludes do not really work. It is talking

about a subject close to my heart, but in a way that feels like it is

oversimplifying it, talking to an audience that doesn't know anything

about this. The problem with that is, there is substance here that I

agree with, interesting interviews, I just wish that it wasn't tied up

in this rather aggravating conceit. And I wish that Michael Moore would

take himself out of the picture. He is the thing that I like least about

his documentaries. There is stuff in there, but it is the delivered in a

way that I find aggravating. But if you're a fan of Michael Moore... It

is more of the same and you will absolutely love it. If you are me,

you will think, I could have lost all of the stuff featuring Hugh and

the flag, Frank Lee. Let's talk about your best movie out at the

moment. It is this adaptation of an early novella by Jane Austen, Love

and Friendship. What I loved about this film was, it is really funny.

Many movies claim to be, these, but for sheer laughs terminate this

beats all of them hands down. It is made by somebody whose films always

have a kind of Jane Austen perspective. He's always had that

dry, satirical humour. Tom Bennett almost steals the show as this very

sort of dim-witted character who, at the beginning is the butt of all the

jokes, but manages to turn this into a great comic creation. It is called

Love and Friendship. It is the funniest film in the cinema and the

most politely impolite movie of the year. Another hit. We will try and

think about that one. And the best DVD out at the moment, this is The

Revenant. You might not want to because it is not my kind of thing.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays this man who was left for dead after being

attacked by a bear, then he has to go on this journey of survival, a

story that has been told before in the cinema. You have to see this on

the big screen to understand this cinematography, you have to see it

as a completely immersive experience. On the small screen, it

is still worth seeing because of Will Poulter, who is a great part of

an ensemble cast. He is fabulous in it. It is an immersive experience.

It is more immersive in the cinema but it is still worth seeing. It is

not a film that you think it is going to be. That's a problem with

the big, cinematic movie, when you watch them on a little TV at home,

it is not quite the same. Actually, nowadays, many people have home

viewing systems that are probably superior to the small screen.

Private cinemas. The other thing is, when you watch something at home on

the couch, you don't have to put up with people talking on their mobile

phones and eating popcorn. For me, the cinema experience is still

primary, but it is possible to have a completely satisfying home viewing

experience and if you're going to watch The Revenant at home watch it

with the sound turned up on the biggest possible screen and don't

wander off and have a cup of tea. But go and see When Marnie Was

There, love and friendship, and Embrace of the Serpent. The only one

I am lukewarm about is the Michael Moore phone. A quick reminder that

you will find more film news and reviews across the BBC online on the

website. That is it for this week. Thank you for watching. Goodbye.

Hello there, we have had a mixture of weather today. Some world in the

sunshine but some heavy, thundery downpours as