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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 12/26/2010 : 14:47:45
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This gem of a film is surprising, it's about something important, it never relies on cliches to tell a deceptively simple story, and most of all celebrates themes so universal they reach out across the world to change the heart.
Let's get out of the way up front that the film is set in the aftermath of the July London bombings five years ago. That is definitely NOT what the film is about, but I believe you cannot truly understand it without knowing the geo-political situation at the time.
Most tellingly during the following weeks, both in Iraq and Afghanistan, there were escalations of heavy bombings, primarily against isolated village targets. The UK papers ran stories of attacks on weddings and children's hospitals among others.
OK - I wanna take a brief sidebar here. Personally, I'm very sceptical about the official explanations of these horrific bombings, both in London and in the two war zones. This was a particular moment when both the Americans and the Brits were trying to re-invigorate dwindling support for foreign military action. It was in the run-up to the planned American annual tribute to the bombing of the WTC.
For the British public generally, any sympathy for that condemnible event had devolved into media jokes and, significantly, to a confusion of how to interpret the phrase nine-eleven.
See, in the UK, I have NEVER heard anyone refer to dates like that. Brits speak of the Lockerbie tragedy, not of 12/21 or 21/12. If Europeans see a date written as 9/11 they'd instantly assume it signified the ninth of November, and not the eleventh of September.
Brits were publicly asking what had happened on the ninth of November that the Americans wanted us to mark with them. Let's not forget we're talking about a society that finds it hard to recall what happened last week.
So, anyway, I believe that someone or some group of people inside or outside of power, needed a symbol to justify the already planned military escalations. In Iraq was the matter of not being able to contain the guerilla tactics of the rebels. In Afghanistan the atmosphere was clouded by moves to silence the opposition to election results which were increasingly suspect in the world's press.
And everywhere was a largely unchallenged and mistaken view that Al-Qaeda and the Taliban were one and the same.
But, however unspeakable they were in human terms, in p.r. terms the bombs were a damp squib. No one spoke of seven/seven and marches against UK military action increased as Blair's support was questioned.
So, when the London bombs went off the police were extra-vigilant and especially eager not to be called racist in their pursuit of Arabic speaking and Asian looking suspects.
But Rachid Bouchareb's London River explores a much more human though no-less dynamic story, his cinema expertise honed after a quarter century of filmmaking.
The London explosions trigger a mother's quite understandable desire to have her only daughter confirm that she's all right. Brenda Blethyn as the mother has never been better ... and that's saying a lot. I hope the nature of the film doesn't color Bafta's members' voting her Best Actress. And this is a year of truly astounding female talent, including Natalie Portman and the amazing Ruth Sheen. It's the scripts, really ... because Blethyn's widowed Elisabeth Sommers has the most treacherous river to cross.
When daughter Jane fails to respond to any of her chirpy, then scolding, then thinly disguised panicky attempts to make contact, Elisabeth persuades her brother to look after her farm, donkeys, and dog, while she plays detective in London.
She goes through all the expected channels, camps out in her daughter's flat, and papers the neighbourhood with photos of Jane.
After hitting many frustrating dead-ends, and trying hard to overcome the racial prejudice she cannot quite disguise even in the face of undeniable help, support and good-will by the blacks and Muslims she meets, she finally is contacted by the French-speaking Mr Ousmane, who thinks his missing son may hold a clue to her missing daughter.
That Elisabeth, well-off widow of a naval officer, should be fluent in French is no surprise. She may be selectively naive and sometimes a bit slow on the uptake, but she's not stupid and has been well-schooled in the expectations of her class.
It's an unlikely pairing - this Devon woman of the soil and a dreadlocked highly articulate arborculturalist, neither of whom truly knows their children. He left his Mali family to pursue a highly successful career in Paris, still in touch with his wife, but having left his son exclusively in her care. Jane has also been raised by a single mum when Elisabeth's husband was killed in the Falklands war.
The film reveals the many crossings each must make to reach the genuine points of communication that seal their bond.
As Ousmane Sotigui Kouyat�'s performance over-runs superlatives. He won the Silver Bear at Berlin for his portrayal, prepared brilliantly by his long career as a tribal story-teller, and as a member of Peter Brooks' story-telling theatrical company. His approach couldn't be more perfect for Blethyn's, learned to such exhilarating effect by her work with Mike Leigh.
It's one of the saddest pieces of cinema news to report Kouyat�'s death soon after his Berlin triumph.
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Edited by - BaftaBaby on 12/27/2010 18:59:32 |
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ci�nas 
"hands down"
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Posted - 01/09/2011 : 19:50:06
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I certainly agree that this is a gem of a film, carried by brilliantly affecting performances by the 2 leads, but I don�t think it avoids all clich�s. Seems to me that the film�s anti-xenophobic message is weakened by its occasional didacticism & the fact that all the non-whites Elisabeth encounters are just so pleasant & open & accommodating.
Not to nitpick, but Elisabeth isn�t from Devon, she�s from Guernsey. I think this adds plausibility to her fluency in French & her feelings of remoteness from & suspicion of multi-cultural London.
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London River- please see my Bafta thread
