Tim Fehlbaum’s September 5 is the film that will open the second edition of the Red Lorry Film Festival, which will take place between March 21 and 23 in Mumbai and Hyderabad. September 5 follows journalists at American network ABC TV as they cover the hostage crisis at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Organised by BookMyShow, Red Lorry has at least 120 features, documentaries and restored classics.
The programme includes Sean Baker’s Oscar-winning Anora, Jacques Audiard’s musical Emilia Perez, a restored IMAX version of David Fincher’s Seven, Luca Guadagnino’s Queer and Magnus von Horn’s Oscar-nominated The Girl with the Needle.
Here are reviews of five of the must-see films at Red Lorry. Festival passes are available on BookMyShow.
The Last Showgirl: Behold Pamela Anderson
It’s common to describe an actor as a “revelation” in a film. In the case of Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl, the praise is fully warranted.
The film stars Pamela Anderson, an object of notoriety notorious because of her past as a Playboy model and her highly publicised relationship with her ex-husband Tommy Lee. In The Last Showgirl, Anderson casts off her image in the same manner as her character shakes off attempts to shame her.
Shelley (Anderson) is an exotic dancer at the Le Razzle Dazzle revue in Las Vegas. Shelley takes pride in what she regards as a respectable career choice. It’s a Parisian Lido-inspired spectacle with dancing bodies and not a nudie show, Shelley earnestly tells her daughter Hannah (Billie Lourd).
But Le Razzle Dazzle is on its way out. Nobody wants to watch women in rhinestone-studded costumes, feathers and elaborate headgear anymore. When manager Eddie (Dave Bautista) breaks the news to the dancers, Shelley is hit the hardest. What is a 57-year-old woman passing herself off as a 36-year-old to do?
Kate Gersten’s screenplay draws from her unpublished play Body of Work, in turn based on an actual show that shut down in 2016 The Last Showgirl is much more than a casting coup.
Coppola’s film resonates strongly with Sean Baker’s Anora in its empathy towards women who grind and gyrate for a living. Anora’s heroine could be Shelley 30 years down the line.
The Last Showgirl has some loose ends it fails to tie up, such as Shelley’s friendship with the waitress Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis) and the fate of the other dancers. Where Coppola’s movie succeeds is in examining the personal cost of holding on to your dignity after you have been declared over the hill and redundant – realities that apply to Shelley’s world as well as any other industry.
The choice of 16mm film stock results in frames that are grainy and blurred at the edges, capturing the ephemerality that clings to the dancers. When the camera rests on Anderson’s face, it reveals a woman who is proud, brave and a bit naive. The film doubles up as a metaphor for who Anderson was and has now chosen to be – without making concessions for conventional morality.
A minor revelation is Dave Bautista, the wrestler-turned actor. Here is another performer who yearns to be taken seriously and can deliver the goods when given the right opportunity.
The Outrun: The many lows and fleeting highs of an alcoholic
The Outrun, based on Amy Liptrot’s memoir of the same name, mirrors the instability that grips its heroine Rona (Saoirse Ronan). Rona is an alcoholic who is finding it nearly impossible to stay sober. Nora Fingscheidt’s absorbing film examines Rona’s struggles in a non-linear fashion, moving between Rona’s past and her inability to adapt to her new surroundings in the present.
On a counsellor’s suggestion, Rona returns home to the picturesque Orkney Islands in Scotland. Rona volunteers with a bird protection programme, keeping an eye and ear out for the elusive corn crake while trying to stay away from the bottle.
Saoirse Ronan turns in a deeply moving performance, capturing Rona’s numerous lows and fleeting highs. The 118-minute film is under no illusion about how hard it can be to overcome addiction, or the lies that addicts tell themselves.
Rona repeatedly lapses into binge drinking, debasing herself ever so often. The disjointed storytelling and handheld camerawork powerfully bring out Rona’s precarious state.
The narrative steadies itself when Rona is out in the open. As Rona learns to connect with the soil and water and give in to a force greater than her own needs, the film acquires a poetic quality.
Portions of The Outrun feel like a nature documentary. The film has a deep feeling for Orkney Islands’s natural bounty as well as its hardy people. While Ronan is the most recognisable actor, the 118-minute film has lovely cameos by actors who appear to be playing fictionalised versions of themselves.
Hollywoodgate: A gripping look at the Taliban – and America
Ibrahim Nash’at’s eye-opening Hollywoodgate gives a twist to the American practice of embedded journalism. The Egyptian director began shooting the documentary in 2021, when the Taliban came back to power in Afghanistan following the withdrawal of American troops. Nash’at was allowed to follow his subjects for a year only if he didn’t film anything else and accepted constant surveillance.
Despite the evident censorship imposed on Nash’at, Hollywoodgate has no shortage of fascinating material. There is a great deal on the surface as well as a lot of reading between the lines, especially given the events in America since the film’s completion in 2023.
The gripping film unfolds through Mawlawi Mansour, the commander of the Air Force, and Mukhtar, a lieutenant who wants to become a pilot. Mansour leads his posse, which includes Mukhtar, through the abandoned Central Intelligence Agency base nicknamed Hollywood Gate.
There are bottles of alcohol, medicines, destroyed computers – and military equipment, including valuable planes, which are damaged but fixable. There is also a fully functioning gym, the source of black humour. Mansour tries out the treadmill, quipping that he needs to lose weight. A row of crutches is a symbol of a war that resulted in the rule of the very force that America had vowed to destroy.
Hollywoodgate provides rare views of the Taliban as they see themselves. They openly denigrate women and declare that they will invade Tajikistan. Nash’at bravely continues filming even though the dangers to him are apparent.
The film’s subjects are often visibly uncomfortable being on camera – a rarity in itself. Unaware that the camera mic can pick up distant sounds, Taliban fighters discuss Nash’at’s fate if he violates his brief. If his intentions are bad, he will die soon, Mansour tells his aide.
The 92-minute documentary is clear-eyed about the continuing dangers posed by the Taliban. Despite being critical of Afghanistan’s latest lords, Hollywoodgate also reveals the callousness of America’s decision to turn its back on a country whose politics it indelibly marked for decades.
Rows and rows of military planes have been left behind, ripe for the taking. If the Taliban had the same resources as America, it could rule the world, a leader ominously says.
Nash’at says in his voiceover that he was required to show the world the image that the Taliban wanted to put out. Hollywoodgate skilfully subverts the Taliban’s wish, also revealing something about America’s misguided foreign policy in the process.
Dog on Trial: A pawsome comedy
An incident involving an adorable canine that ends up in court and become a cause celebre – not Anatomy of a Fall, but the considerably less serious Dog on Trial.
In the French-language film, inspired by an actual case, the dog is the one in the dock. Cosmos, who belongs to a blind man, stands accused of biting a woman so badly that her face needs reconstructive surgery.
The prosecuting lawyer, who is also running for mayor, declares that the mutt is a public enemy and must be euthanised. Avril, known as the lawyer for helpless causes, takes up the canine’s cause.
Avril argues that Cosmos needs to be treated like a person rather than an object. Farce ensues inside and outside the courtroom, caused largely in part by the easily overwrought Avril’s growing affection for Cosmos.
Dog on Trial marks Laetitia Dosch’s directing debut. Dosch starred in Anatomy of a Fall director Justine Triet’s own feature debut Age of Panic (2013). Dosch hilariously plays Avril in Dog on Trial, gamely allowing Cosmos (real name Kodi) to emerge as the scene-stealer.
The scruffy mongrel has irresistible eyes and an intelligent manner that justifies Avril’s faith in him. This supposedly bad boy turns out to be a very good boy indeed.
Sew Torn: The woman with the deadly needle
Freddy Macdonald’s twist-heavy feature debut is Run Lola Run with heavy lashings of Coen brothers-style black comedy. Barbara (Eve Connolly), whose tailoring business is on the verge of closure, stumbles upon a bag full of money and two wounded men.
Barbara has three choices: flee the scene, take the money or call the police. Each of the scenarios plays out with different consequences but a single uniting element – Barbara’s dexterity with a needle and thread.
Has sewing ever been put to such imaginative use? Macdonald’s clever script invites viewers to suspend disbelief and go along with Barbara’s transformation from meek seamstresses to ambitious criminal. Eve Connolly is wholly convincing as the woman with the deadly needle, threading her way out of imminent erasure.
Also read:
‘September 5’, ‘The Last Showgirl’, ‘Anora’, ‘Queer’ and ‘The Outrun’ at Red Lorry Film Festival
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