Tag Archives: cinema

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We went to see a film: Fallen Leaves

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“The way I see it, the difference between a ‘movie’ and a ‘film’ is that one is scared to death of boring you for a second and the latter refuses to entertain you for a moment.” Alan Parker (Will Write and Direct for Food)

The first thing to say is that going on the Alan Parker definition Fallen Leaves felt like a film to me, not a movie.

The story is set in Helsinki, Finland, and follows the bleak prospects and lives of two lonely, low paid workers – Ansa (Alma Pöysti) and Holappa (Jussi Vatanen) who have never met, but whose paths start to cross with increasing frequency as they fall in love, and in and out of jobs. Aki Kaurismäki is the director, and all dialogue is in Finnish, with subtitles.

It’s hard to describe how minimalist it all is. Not much talking. Not much smiling. Not much colour. No gunfights. No murders. No sex. Just day to day. Too much drink. Too much bad luck. Too much war on the radio. Not much hope. Then a dog comes along. And things change. Just enough.

Did I enjoy it? Yes. It kept me on the point of smiling, almost laughing, and hoping, all the way through. It is so pared back – such a quiet depiction of the odd luck of life, and of how love survives, despite never-ending corporate heartlessness, war and drink.

Should you go and see it? I would say a definite yes, provided you’re not craving fast-paced entertainment, crammed with sensual overload. This is gentle. It left us smiling and took only an hour and twenty minutes of our time.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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Going to the movies

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“Don’t you go to the movies?” “Mostly just to eat popcorn in the dark.” Charles Bukowski

It’s cold out there. It’s winter out there. It’s madness out there. Feels like just the right time to get out there and go to the movies.

“Movie? Surely you mean film?”

Well, fairly surely, I’m sticking to movie, and this brilliant article on the movie versus film debate is one of the reasons why. It seems movie has bounced into our vocabulary like a grey squirrel, and pushed little film out on to a lonely, professional limb.

Then there’s the what to watch question. Not sure what we’ll go to see yet, but just the idea of it is helping to shift the dark. For me there is such pleasure in sitting in the popcorn gloom of a cinema, surrounded by strangers and their mobiles until the lights go out. Then the small screens disappear and off we fly, all of us together, to another world.

We could, of course, be transported from in front of our television or a laptop, but it always feels like an edge is missing. Like we’ve cheated. How can we properly go to the planet Tatooine, or the Mushroom Kingdom, or Barbie Land, or Into the Void, on a sofa by ourselves?

And besides, homemade popcorn may be good, but it hasn’t got that cost-us-way-too-much pop about it.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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A thought on age rating in films

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It must be so complex trying to decide how to rate a film. I would love to know what percentage of families take note of the ratings when it comes to seeing movies at home. In our case we tried, but sometimes it was like swimming up a waterfall, the higher ratings only making the film more tempting to any youngsters we thought we might have had a chance of influencing.

Was I grateful for the ratings? Yes, although some of them left me completely baffled, especially when our children were younger and without a television in the house. Like teddy bears at a picnic they’d be looking forward to the movie treat, when suddenly some gory, or tragic, universal ‘U’-rated film, would put them through a whole shock level of trauma that most of their ‘sophisticated’ contemporaries didn’t even register. Makes me laugh now looking back, but I remember the stress then. I think it was probably far worse for me imagining how bad it might be for them, than it actually was for them!

Our parental life had not begun in 1978, but it seems viewing trauma still lingers for those parenting then, and, as if in recognition of the stress suffered, either by parents from that time or by their children, and just in case it happens again, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has, after 45 years, raised the rating of Watership Down from ‘U’ (suitable for all) to parental guidance (PG).

In the United Kingdom the recently released film Barbie is rated as 12A meaning anyone under twelve should be accompanied by an adult.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023