What to Watch Thursday: Only Lovers Left Alive and The Selfish Giant

What to Watch Thursday: Only Lovers Left Alive and The Selfish Giant

Feb 6, 2014 |  by  |  Art, Event
About the author
A sucker for a good story, Cathy is a writer, originally from London. As part of broadcastamsterdam.nl she reviews films and makes video reports on Amsterdam in English. She picks out the best of the lot especially for Overdose. Tweets @cathycentral

What To Watch Thursday is Overdose’s weekly film injection: every Thursday we will tell you which cinematographic pearls can’t be missed! This time we bring you tales of eternal love and friendship. Ahh…

Only Lovers Left Alive

Anticipation: Indie director Jim Jarmusch has plied his trade for over 30 years, and yet my only knowledge of his work is Broken Flowers. That’s unfortunate, perhaps, as I hated it (the critics loved it). So there it is, I’m a dunce when it comes to Jarmusch. Which is shameful, I know. The film’s lead actor, Tom Hiddleston, on the other hand, I dream about most nights. Again, shameful.

Appreciation: Adam (Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton) care for each other dearly but with the luxury of a vampire’s infinite lifetime, they choose to live apart. Adam opts for seclusion in a crumbing Detroit, surrounding himself with vintage guitars and manges to Skype with Eve on an ancient TV set (he’s a bit of a technical whiz). Eve is slightly more social, hanging out with frail vampire Marlowe (John Hurt) in Tangiers. The mere mortals they call ‘zombies’ are severely depressing Adam so Eve makes the trip overseas to chase away his suicidal thoughts. Reunited, they enjoy a bit of a love-in until Eve’s sister, Ava (Mia Wasikowska) arrives and stirs things up. Apart from Ava, these vampires are cultured and ethical, they get the blood they need from hospitals and doctors. Their extended time on earth has lead to a deep understanding of art, music, and human nature. In fact, this is one of those films where you just enjoy spending time in the characters’ company, Eve especially. Yes this film is a teeny bit slow and yes the whole Marlowe-wrote-Hamlet-not-Shakespeare secret is a bit overdone. But really those are the only faults. And the music is utterly enchanting.

Only Lovers Left Alive

Length: 123 min
Verdict: ★★★★ – A gratifying melancholy, with ice-pops of blood to cheer things up
Where to see: Kriterion, Cafe 16cc



The Selfish Giant

Anticipation: The film press in the Netherlands is loving The Selfish Giant. IFFR hailed it. Het Parool have given it a thumbs up. What more do you need to know? It’s set in Yorkshire’s industrial hinterland, on a scrapyard mostly, where work horses graze perilously close to hanging electricity cables and the kids have nothing to sit on ‘cos the debt collectors took the sofa. Downton Abbey this ain’t.

Appreciation: Gentle soul, Swifty (Shaun Thomas) has his loyalty to his cheeky friend, Arbor (Conner Chapman), tested one too many times. They’re suspended from school and turn to foraging and nicking scrap metal to make a bit of pocket money; a dangerous, illegal business but paying more than these kids could ever hope for given their poor backgrounds. Arbor is the more ambitious of the two, on medication for behavioural problems he seems to need the scrap metal adventure more than Swifty, who has another option open to him. It seems young Swifty is a bit of a horse whisperer, and so he becomes a lot more interesting to the local scrapyard owner, Kitten (Sean Gilder), who’s desperate to win an illegal horse-and-cart road race. In this way, Kitten is supposedly the selfish giant of the title, taking inspiration from a 1888 short story by Oscar Wilde, but it’s an incredibly loose connection to that story. It’s not about Kitten much, it’s really about the dynamics of friendship, jealousy and exclusion; and then, sadly, the emptiness of grief and peace of forgiveness. With Ken Loach, reaching his retrospective era, the future of social realism in film could lie with directors like Clio Barnard. She’s certainly hit a true note in this one.

The Selfish Giant

Length: 91 min
Verdict: ★★★★ – A heartbreaking story of friendship
Where to see: Rialto, EYE

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