FILMS WORTH WATCHING by Robert Alstead

According to festival director Thierry Frémaux, Fahrenheit 9/11 had the longest standing ovation he has ever seen. In the documentary Moore draws links between the Bush and bin Laden clans, shows the gaping flaws in the Bush administration’s Iraq policy, and interviews limbless victims and bereaved parents of US soldiers. It also shows previously unseen footage of US troops mistreating Iraqi prisoners and a clip Moore obtained from a pre-school teacher, showing Bush’s inability to act in a crisis (the infamous My Pet Goat video).

Moore himself appears less on the screen than in previous films. “This time I was the straight man, Bush wrote the funniest lines,” he joked at Cannes. Moore may make some changes to the film before its summer release (he wants to open on July 4 weekend in the States, in time for the presidential election campaign), as more revelations about Iraq come out. If the festival reaction is anything to go by, Fahrenheit 9/11 looks like it will surpass the box office record for a documentary that Moore set with his last film Bowling for Columbine. For information on Moore’s battle with Disney on distribution see his web site.

On September 11, 2001, I was walking in the Scottish Highlands with a friend of mine, David Mackenzie. He’s also the director of Young Adam, which recently made it across the water. The grimey, slow-burn drama follows Joe (Ewan McGregor), a failed writer who while working on a canal barge in fifties Scotland, has a series of carnal affairs with different women. One in particular is his boss Les’s (Peter Mullan) wife Ella (Tilda Swinton) who he takes in the close quarters of the barge. There’s also the corpse of a naked woman that Joe and Les fish out of the canal at the beginning of the film and whose discovery sets things up for a provocative conclusion. The film has a brooding, sweaty, claustrophobic intensity. Unlike Hollywood films it doesn’t force-feed you with a message or happy ending. Rather with the amoral anti-hero at its fore this follows firmly in the great British tradition of feel-bad movies. It’s very good to see Dave realize his little arthouse film so well after having watched him battle to get it made over the last decade.

The creators of megabucks ecological disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow may have used artistic licence when depicting the impact of the greenhouse effect, but climatologists have welcomed the film’s political message.

Scientists are hoping that the film, which features hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis and earthquakes wreaking destruction across the planet, will do more than decades of science has done to popularize the issue and force politicians to respond to global warming.

What is love? Rand (John Livingston), a multimedia producer and the protagonist of Dopamine, is convinced that the emotion is just a biochemical high. The title refers to the natural chemical we produce during states of well-being and euphoria. Of course, Rand is going to be proved he is wrong on that score. When he and his two partners start testing their voice-activated computer pet called Koy Koy on a class of kindergarten kids, a relationship starts to form between Rand and the emotionally vulnerable teacher Sarah (Sabrina Lloyd). The two are clearly attracted to each other, but their personal histories of suffering and guilt leads to awkwardness and reticence between the two.

The film is more searching than your run-of-the-mill romance with depth to the characters even in the minor roles. The well-rounded script is occasionally marred by heavy-handed plot turns, but makes up with inventiveness in other areas of the story. Livingston may look like Ben Affleck with a smugness bypass, but the lack of big name stars and Hollywood production values adds to the sense that the film has its feet planted in reality. Dopamine is due out this month.

Look out also for The Mother (June 25), an unusual romantic comedy from the director of Notting Hill, about a grandmother who embarks on a passionate affair with a man half her age and Nathaniel Gerry’s On The Corner (June 18) a drama set on East Hastings. It is about a teenager fresh off the “rez” who gets sucked into Vancouver’s drug underworld. Release dates may be subject to change.

Robert Alstead runs movie ezine iofilm

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