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I have printed a FREE film zine of the incredible movies of 2016 that I saw - you can find them at any of the art, poetry or film places I haunt on a weekly basis in London (ICA, BFI, Picturehouses, Walthamstow cafe’s/venues etc)....or email me and will post one out - hassanvawda@hotmail.co.uk

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Top 10 Films of 2016

1. Embrace of the Serpent (Dir. Ciro Guerra)

2. Cemetery of Splendor (Dir. Apichapong Weeresethekal)

3. Son of Saul (Dir. László Nemes)

4. Notes on Blindness (Dir. James Spinney & Peter Middleton)

5. Star Wars: Rogue One (Dir. Gareth Edwards)

6. 13th…(Dir. Ava DuVernay)

7. Patterson (Dir. Jim Jarmusch)

8. Anomolisa (Dir. Duke Johnson & Charlie Kaufman)

9. The Childhood of a Leader (Dir. Brady Corbet)

10.The Birth of a Nation (Dir. Nat Parker)

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For Abbas Kiarostami

When I read a news headline that Abbas Kiarostami had left this world, like all a sadness tightened, but I also smiled a smile I never have done before – I was washed in a profound, dedicated and hailing gratitude. Kiarostami had given me something that redefined and help shape my existence and the way I see every experience, object, person and piece of art in my life. Kiarostami gave me something that made me see myself as an artist and see every individual I cross as an artist – he gave me something to never see art again but to look at life through art. This eternal gift that I and the world are forever grateful for is in his 1989 film Close Up. In the closing moments of the film, there is 45-50 seconds where poetry becomes as tangible as the book you are holding, the glass you drink from, the shoes you wear and the floor you walk on. Nothing in the history of the world has achieved what Kiarostami gives us onscreen within these 45-50 seconds – it is not just an absolute accumulation of the films themes, but an absolute accumulation of the meaning of existence, change, hope and the infinite consideration that comes from art.

Close Up is neither fiction nor documentary, well for me it isn’t even cinema or art – it is an artist, it is a philosopher and it is a poet – Kiarostami is the director of this film, but he is not the sole creator of what is achieved on screen – he allows life to direct half the film, striking a perfect and seamless balance between his eye and the circumstance of the worlds histories. The film is a portrait of Hossein Sabzian, the unlucky man who loved cinema so much, he convinced himself and a family he was the director Mohsen Makhmalbhaf. This is a true story, and Kiarostami films the trial that Sabzian is on, charged with fraud – however interspersed in the evolving story is recreations of moments, meetings and minute details –re-enacted by all those involved playing themselves…or themselves playing someone else.

The observations and minute ripples of understandings, empathies and frustrations are captured equally as documentary and as fiction – whether it Sabzian pretending he doesn’t know what a close up is, just so he can hear it explained to him by Kiarostami or the lens wailing on the way two characters look at a metal can on the floor – these moments are infinite – pristine. It is as Kiarostami lets life role, but has the genius to freeze and unpick it as if it were frames of a film, before it ever was even shot.

When I watched Close Up for the first time when I was 19, off a VHS recording on a small television in the corner of a library, it felt as everything I had learnt, I am learning and I will learn was for that one moment of 45-50 seconds towards the end of the film. It gave me the key to see art and poetry as essential to life, and essential to society – for every individual and for every community. If everyone in the world discovered the tangible poetry that Close Up brings, not just see it as a film, but have the tools to value it and see it as history’s greatest achievement – considerations of the world would be infinite for every individual – that is utopia.

I thank you Mr. Kiarostami for proving it exists

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I have printed a FREE film zine of the incredible movies of 2015 that I saw. If you want one as email me at hassanvawda@hotmail.co.uk or you can find them at any of the art, poetry or film places I haunt on a weekly basis in London. 

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Top 10 Films of 2015

1. Bajrangi Bhaijaan (Dir. Kabir Khan)

2. Hard to be a God (Dir. Aleksei German)

3. Timbuktu (Dir. Abderrahmanne Sissako)

4. Mad Max: Fury Road (Dir. George Miller)

5. Salt of the Earth (Dir. Wim Wenders & Juliano Reheiro Salgado)

6. Inside Out (Dir. Pete Docter & Ronnie del Carmen)

7. Enemy (Dir. Dennis Villeneuve)

8. Force Majeure (Dir. Ruben Ostlund)

9. Slow West (Dir. John Maclean)

10. The Ecstasy of Wilko Johnson (Dir. Julien Temple)

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Perfect Double Bills

Carol (2015) Dir. Todd Haynes

A Single Man (2009) Dir. Tom Ford

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Carol (2015) Dir. Todd Haynes

5/10

Todd Haynes has an eyes for stories - his Bob Dylan ‘biopic’ was something of masterpiece, arguably richer than Dylan’s actual life - which must be regarded as one of the greatest achievements in recent cinema. In his latest ‘Carol’, he adapts Patricia Highsmiths story of delicate love and longing, ‘The Price of Salt’ - adapting it with texture but unfortunately not the text. 

With two high class Hollywood actresses in each of the central roles; Rooney Mara, the mousey shop assistant and Cate Blanchett, the high class fine woman who balances a life and a sexuality, both on firing form - it should be a rapturous, sensuous and heart wrenching experience of love that just can’t happen as fate may intend it too. But, for some reason, I never felt a dripping emotion I was seeing on screen, as much as I admire the performances - well, I do think Cate Blanchet was more theatre than living thunder in this film. 

Todd Haynes, from the opening shot, presents a hyper magnified texture of that Mad Men time, its such a rich movie, but doesn’t ever taste as complex as it likes to look.

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I was on Soho Radio, talking some of the films of this year, London Film Festival 2015 and the 1968 masterpiece, The Swimmer. All with a killer playlist of music by the Fopp wizzes.

Next show will be Monday 23rd November. 

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I wanted to be a director, I became one. Wanted to be an actor, I became one. Wanted to make good movies, I have done that too. Have money, have everything. But I have nothing left

Guru Dutt

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Scene of the Week:  ’Jane Woh Kaise Log The’ Pyaasa (1957) Dir. Guru Dutt

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Perfect Pieces of Cinema

The Killer of Sheep (1978) Dir. Charles Burnett

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Straight Outta Compton (2015) Dir. F. Gary Gary

6/10

Bouncing caddies, jiggling booty and money money money, then boom tragic with dramatic music - the trailer of the movie got all excited to see a blend between the hedonistic rap culture of the 90’s but also touch on the race/politics/pressures of society then and which still exists now. I went to a semi-packed but vocal close to midnight screening in the film, which was just perfect, an audience oohing and ahhing at every diss and deepness. But when the credits rolled at the close of the film, there was a resounding sigh.

Produced by Dre and Ice-Cube, the movie charts just the formation and first 10 years of NWA. So, it was never going to be totally impartial, not that any biopic ever created is, but it really seems to make the movie suffer with the directions this film takes. After a frankly, quite blistering 40 minutes, in the confident direction of F. Gary Gary, the film is held strong with the underpinning of social commentary and racial politics - substance for the mind, regardless of whatever the entertaining fuck yous flowing on screen. But once the film gets established, it gives up all the powerful underpinning, in favour of contactual disputes and the ‘unfairness’ of the music industry, which frankly is dull, uninteresting and makes the entertaining fuck yous on screen a total hollow headache.

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People of colour have a constant frustration of not being represented, or being misrepresented, and these images go around the world.

Spike Lee

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Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015) Dir. Kabir Khan

9/10

Although turning out to be one of the most financially successful Bollywood film of all time, Bajrangi Bhaijaan is not just one of the many crowd pleasing masala popcorn movies that come thick and fast through every year, in fact Bajrangi Bhaijaan encapsulates everything that makes your emotions rage and romantically sweep as if familiarity is being looked at through a microscope - a brightly coloured microscope with its own sound system. In many ways, this is also one of the fundamental beauties in the medium of cinema, a beauty that is often lost in the industry bland sea of mainstream blockbuster or under cynical film critics snotty nose, the beauty of cinema as emphatic distraction and emphatic exploration from and of life.

The muscle machismo bad boy superstar Salman Khan is in a turn of unusual performance, swapping biceps and brawls to play a character that embodies the mercies and humbleness of faith. Pawan is a devout Hindu, full of kindness to the world. One day he buys a meal for a little girl on roads who can't speak and is totally alone. With authorities and bureaucracy unable to help, he adopts her into his own family in the home of his moustachioed father in law of tradition, that typical of Bollywood characters. Everything is wonderful till it transpires that the little girl is in fact...Pakistani! Fury from the father-in-law to send her away makes Pawan go on a remarkable journey of discovery and acceptance through the back doors of India and Pakistan to reunite the little girl with her family.

From its opening beats, this is truly a world class Bollywood romp - songs of romance, songs of faith and of course songs of hilarious absurdity are all present between the story writhing story narrative. Under all the entertainment, there are two fine tuned cogs which are working to perfection making this the wonderful film it is. The first is the central pairing of Salman Khan and the young girl, played by the marvellous Harshaali Malhotra. Pawan is a man of humble faith, but by taking her on the journey to find her family, he unravels and searches his own character for new ways of thinking. There is a real purity between the two and credit must go to Salman Khan, who makes every frame warm with his characters presence, causing heartbreak to break harder and joy to open harder. This relationship in many ways felt reminiscent of the pinnacle of pure cinema, the relationship between Bruno Gantz’ Phil Winter and the young girl Alice in Wim Wenders’ Alice in the Cities.

The second crystal cog that elevates the film is the mighty social message that comes through organically within the melodrama and hysterics of its Bollywood entertainment. Tackling the political tensions between India and Pakistan, it throws it all in the face of humanity and in the movie humanity wins - lets hope life can be like the movies too. In the films climax, no matter how stern you are, you will be shacking with emotion, biting the tears of joy from pouring down your face.

This is the best Bollywood film I have seen in years, in fact its the best film I have seen all year.

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Top 7 LGBT+ Films

7 incredible films that show theres more to life than boymeetsgirlz 

7. The Watermelon Woman (1996) Dir. Cheryl Dunye

6. In einem Jahr mit 13 Monden (In a Year with 13 Moons) (1978) Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder

5. The Killing of Sister George (1968) Dir. Robert Aldrich

4. Tropical Malady (2004) Dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul

3. Theorem (1968) Dir. Pier Paolo Passolini

2. Happy Together (1997) Dir. Wong Kar-wai

1. Mala Noche (1986) Dir. Gus Van Sant

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Top 7 Fathers in Cinema

7. Father in Moebius (2013)

6. Michael Sullivan Sr. in Road to Perdition (2002) 

5. Jason ‘ Furious’ Styles in Boyz n the Hood (1991)

4. Clifford Worley in True Romance (1993)

3. Fuad in The Time That Remains (2009)

2. Antonio Ricci in The Bicycle Thieves (1948) 

1. Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

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I always like to think of the audience when I am directing. Because I am the audience

Steven Spielberg