A Bit of Everything: One day at the 26th Leeds International Film Festival

The Plaza Cinema manager Mike McKenny (@DestroyApathy) gives us a round-up of his first day at the Leeds International Film Festival.

My first day of LIFF brought a feast of cinema coming in many varieties, with examples from the genre-heavy Fanomenon strand, the documentary-dedicated Cinema Versa strand and a prime example of the Silent Classics element of the festival’s retrospective offerings. For more complete reviews of The King of Pigs and Winter Nomads, check over at www.filmandfestivals.com this week.

The first film of my LIFF was grim Korean animation The King of Pigs, about the lasting horrors of teenage bullying. The film is told through the experiences and internal narration of wife beating Jong-Suk as he is contacted by old school friend Kyung-Min, who we see at the very start of the film has killed his wife. The two meet up and reminisce so that we the audience are gradually informed about their school experiences, particularly the psychological and physical abuse to which they were subjected. Their stories of this period all focus on Chul-Yi, the one individual that stood up for them; the titular king of pigs.

The film vividly illuminates the long term damage caused by the cyclical nature of bullying, kept alive by class immobility and repressed masculinity, but the execution frustrated more than anything. There were flashes of sheer brilliance in some brutal and disturbing visual set-pieces, but considering the complex nature of the subject matter, there was very little subtlety, ambiguity or nuance in the depiction of these quite predictable stock characters.

My second film of the day was a sublime little documentary called Winter Nomads, about a couple of shepherds, the seasoned veteran Pascal and his younger female accomplice Carole. The film follows them from beginning to end of a four month wander around the Swiss countryside during the dead of winter. Their bitterly cold journey has no specific geographic goal; the intention is simply to roam from field to field finding whatever vegetation is left post-harvest to fatten up their flock of 800 sheep.

The approach to documenting events is in my opinion the very best kind of documentary filmmaking. Never obtrusive, never making the filmmaker’s presence felt, never asking specific questions of the shepherds or implanting directional voice over narration. The camera simply captures what occurs and packages it into a neat, well paced ninety minutes. Snippets of life include showing how certain sheep stand out from the crowd, creating a bond with the shepherd and thus becoming a bellwether bearer and how the many locals bring out warm drinks and food when the flock is based near their property. The film easily charms and entertains for its duration and is a thoroughly joyful insight into this annual event.

Immediately after this I saw an enlightening, but quite standard documentary called Golden Slumbers, which caught up with the few surviving individuals involved in the booming Cambodian cinema industry of the 1960s, before the Khmer Rouge completely decimated it in the 1970s. The content – though not fully supported by a quite standard ‘talking heads’ format – is fascinating, hearing firsthand accounts not only of this booming period, but of its brutal demise. Not seeing any footage from the period captured the sense of loss, what with there being none to show and all. This was felt very sincerely by such a cinephile as myself, particularly as the music from these films has survived and played over the scenes which refer to the films from which the music belongs. With the music and songs being as integral to popular Cambodia cinema of the time as it is to something like Bollywood, its use evoked more of an immersive psychological connection, only to be denied the images, which is very much the point of this heavy-hearted documentary. I must add though, that I had to miss the final ten minutes of the film in order to ensure I got into the next one on time.

The final film of the day was Viktor Turin’s silent soviet film, Turksib, playing in LIFF’s ‘Silent Classics’ Retrospective strand. Those Soviets really knew how to sell themselves; this is a thoroughly evocative, albeit wildly propagandistic piece of cinema. It was introduced by LIFF’s Programme Manager Alex King as being a relatively forgotten film when placed against some of the soviet behemoths like Battleship Potemkin, but Alex rightfully stressed that it shouldn’t be forgotten at all. Not only is the film wonderfully put together, but it was a major influence on the British documentary movement that went on to be so influential in global cinema. So much so that this English language print actually had the intertitles produced by British documentary legend John Grierson.

The film showcases – or postulates – the might and cohesion of the Soviet Union by depicting its organisational ability, utilising the masses to build a railway to physically – and metaphysically – join together Turkestan and Siberia in spite of the vicious dessert conditions; thus not allowing even the defiance of nature to halt the Union’s progress.

The film excels in its use of rhythm, with the editing at times being a montage master-class, particularly when steadily building to a frantic set-piece. This was joyfully and hypnotically exacerbated by the musical talents of Bronnt Industries Kapital (@bronnt), who accompanied the film live on stage with a whole host of instruments and devices. A wonderful way to end a full day of cinema.

Above are examples from a number of the festival’s strands that should give a taste of what else to expect. There are still a good two weeks of films packed into this West Yorkshire city with a plethora of cinematic treats to be had. There are a number of recommendations made on my Culture Vulture preview article that haven’t yet played. Make sure you get down to some of them.

Read fuller reviews of some of the films featured in this round-up over at Film&Festival Magazine’s film festival blog.

Mike can be found on Twitter at @DestroyApathy. He is currently overseeing the restoration project at The Plaza Cinema (@ThePlaza_BD7) in Bradford and sits on the Enjoy strand of Bradford City of Film. He is also treasurer and committee member of Award Winning Leeds based film society Minicine (@MinicineYorks)