(Reviews of The Goldman Case; Sugarcane; Notes From Sheepland; Reawakening; Goodwin Island; and Astrakan 79)
THE GOLDMAN CASE.
As France digests the appalling revelations as Dominique Pelicot has his day in court, British audiences get the chance to see a reconstruction of a murder trial that had similarly gripped La Patrie back in 1976. Scripted by director Cédric Kahn and Nathalie Hertzberg, The Goldman Case has a vérité rigour that disguises the fact that it relies less on courtroom transcripts than on interviews with some of those involved, as well as exhaustive research into newspaper articles written about the case, records from the defendant's previous trial, and his prison-scripted autobiography, Obscure Memories of a Polish Jew Born in France.
Opening captions explain that Pierre Goldman (Arieh Worthalter) was given a life sentence for three armed robberies, as well as a fourth on 19 December 1969 that saw two female pharmacists die on Boulevard Richard-Lenoir. The publication of his memoir led to doubts being cast over the verdict reached in the Paris assizes and an appeal commenced in Amiens on 26 April 1976.
On the eve of the trial, Goldman dispenses with the services of Maître Georges Kiejman (Arthur Harari), calling him `an armchair Jew'. In the sole scene set outside the courthouse, Kiejman summons Francis Chouraqui (Jeremy Lewin) to his office to hear the letter that Goldman had written asking him to take over his defence. Despite being frustrated by the way Goldman cultivates trendy left-wing celebrities, Kiejman is passionate about keeping him from the guillotine and he's relieved when Chouraqui informs him that Goldman has already changed his mind and again wants Kiejman to represent him.
As actress Simone Signoret and philosopher Régis Debray take their place in court alongside Goldman's vocal supporters, court president (Stéphan Guérin-Tillié) notes that Goldman only contests the pharmacy killings and he concurs that he is not calling witnesses to his character, as he accepts his reputation will countermand anything they say. However, he wishes to protest his innocence because he was in the company of Joël Lautric (Maxime Tshibangu) when the crime was committed.
The president recaps Goldman's life to this point and mention is made of the Polish-Jewish parents who fought with the FTP-MOI Resistance, his schoolday expulsions, his refusal to do military service, and his involvement with the Union of Communist Students while at the Sorbonne. Goldman calls his stint as a guerrilla in Venezuela the best of his life and admits to robberies in Paris and insists that their efficient execution confirms that he was too methodical to shoot two innocent women while fleeing the scene.
The prison psychiatrist (Laetitia Masson) who has originally considered Goldman to have been borderline schizophrenic explains how she changed her evaluation and dismisses suggestions from prosecutor Henri-René Garaud (Nicolas Briançon) that she had lost a sense of objectivity because Goldman had given her flowers from the prison garden.
Garaud and the Advocate General (Aurélien Chaussade) also go on the attack when Goldman's Guadeloupe-born wife, Christiane Succab (Chloé Lecerf), takes the stand. She claims to have been coerced into making statements by racist cops and the president has to call for order when the gallery responds to Goldman's assertion that the entire French police force is racist where Blacks and Jews are concerned.
Father Alter Mojze Goldman (Jerzy Radziwi³owicz) is next to speak and describes how tough it was for his son as a young boy in Lyon, as his parents were always arguing. Eventually, Janine Sochaczewska returned to Poland and he remarried, although Pierre visited his mother and saw Auschwitz, as well as how Communism was working first hand. Alter apologises to his son for not understanding him properly before reading his book, but has never doubted his innocence in the murder case.
Goldman is embarrassed by his father's words and asks the president to stick to the facts not the testimonial of a regretful parent. But, when Garaud tries to make mischief by claiming that the defence made no effort to get Janine a visa because she would have made such a bad character witness, a furious Goldman re-asserts the wartime heroism shown by his parents and asks Garaud what he has ever done in his life to match it. As order is restored after more opinions from the gallery, the president calls a recess.
In the downstairs cell, Kiejman urges Goldman to control himself and warns him not to rise to the bait when Commissaire Jobard (Didier Borga) testifies. However, because Goldman won't identify Witness X2 (as his father taught him never to rat on anyone), Garaud claims he is playing cute to prevent someone who can incriminate him from taking the stand. But Kiejman leads Jobard into admitting that X2 could be unreliable and that his claim to have seen Goldman with the weapons used at the pharmacy could be mistaken.
Evidence follows from the widower of one of the victims and posthumously from the man who recovered from his gunshot wounds to point out Goldman in a line-up before perishing in a car crash. Next, Madame Carrel (Priscilla Lopes) has her gut feeling that Goldman is the man she saw from behind at the pharmacy is rubbished by Kiejman, although he has a harder time with Agent Quinet (Paul Jeanson). Even though he initially swore that the man who had shot him during a chase from the murder scene was a `mulatto', he has since contradicted himself several times in giving testimony. Garaud proclaims him a hero, but Goldman insists he's a bigot who the police flattered into pinning the blame on him. Kiejman casts doubt, but Quinet concludes by stating that he can never forget the face of the person who shot him.
Kiejman has an easier time undermining the evidence of Mademoiselle Lecoq (Priscillia Martin), who erroneously insists the off-duty Quinet was in uniform and mistakes the direction the staggering man was heading when he jostled her. She refuses to withdraw the insult identifying Goldman as an Arab because he has a long nose, so the damage is done by the time Garaud makes a theatrical interjection. He's up again when Kiejman questions the eyesight, memory, and ethics of eyewitness Dr Pluvinage (Xavier Aubert), who gossiped with neighbours rather than running to the aid of an injured man. When Garaud protests that decent people are being subjected to insults by a gangster, Goldman accuses him of being a bigot in cahoots with a racist police force.
Chaos erupts, as the president leaves the bench and Goldman is wrestled to the cell. Kiejman bawls him out for his suicidal arrogance, as he is undoing any good work they are doing with the jury. Back in the dock, Goldman is soon challenging the evidence of Commissioner Leclerc (François Favrat) about the fairness of the identity parade. He claims everyone was clean shaven, while he had been up all night and he contradicts the assertion of Inspector Goussard (Romain Parent) that he had been given a functioning electric shaver. Kiejman's assistant Bartoli (Christian Mazzuchini) uses this glitch to point out that the police forgot to put film in the camera for the line-up and were, therefore, tilting the table to charge Goldman.
Quinet leaps from his seat to accuse Goldman of being a liar, but lets slip that he had been in the office at this time when he had previously claimed not to have been. When the jury ask for clarification about the layout of the offices, they reach the conclusion that Quinet's denial was mendacious and Goldman's supporters roar their approval. When the president calls for order, Kiejman springs a surprise by bringing in the officers who stood in the line-up and positions between them a lifesize photo of Goldman on the night he was arrested, which demonstrates that he had been set up to stand out from others who bore little resemblance. The court, for once, falls silent.
Venezuelan revolutionary Oswaldo Baretto (Lucas Olmedo) is the next to appear. He had been with Goldman in Cuba and Caracas and had come to Paris with him in 1969. The president suggests he had been concerned that Goldman had committed the pharmacy killings, but he insists he remained loyal because he had been reassured by Joël Lautric, who could provide him with a watertight alibi. The defence highlights inconsistencies in his testimony, with Garaud sarcastically congratulating him for having a memory that improves with time. However, when the Advocate General seeks to press home this advantage, Lautric reveals that he had been intimidated by the police and took the coward's way out of telling them that Goldman was potentially dangerous after they had ransacked his apartment and roughed him up.
The summations follow, with Garaud playing to the crowd, while the Advocate General sticks to what he insists are incontrovertible facts. Bartoli stakes his 40-year reputation on Goldman's innocence and reminds the jury of the sacrifices made by Jewish and immigrant families in saving France during the war and subsequently helping it rebuild. Kiejman follows by noting that the police have never conducted a reconstruction of the crime or found any hard evidence of Goldman's guilt. The case depends on witness identification, which has been undermined during the trial. But he ends by saying that he shares Goldman's Polish-Jewish heritage and feels his childhood was scarred in the same way and that the persecution of Jews and ethnic minorities in France has to stop.
Given a chance to speak, Goldman and he simply wants it clear that he has not played the Jewish card to get off and doesn't believe that anyone who finds him guilty is anti-Semitic. On 6 May, he is acquitted of the murders and the president is drowned out, as he sentences Goldman to 12 years for the other robberies. Captions reveal that he was released on 5 October 1976 after serving six years, only to be assassinated in mysterious circumstances three years later. Ten thousand attended his funeral.
For those not au fait with Pierre Goldman or his trial, numerous questions will remain unanswered as the credits roll. Yet Kahn does more than enough by shining a light into the grey areas to establish that his conviction for the murders of Simone Delauney and Janine Aubert was secured by nefarious police practices that were rooted in racial prejudice. As the action is restricted to the Amiens courtroom, viewers eager to know about his associations with the likes of Yves Montand, Simone Signoret, Jean-Paul Sartre, Françoise Sagan, and singer/half-brother Jean-Jacques Goldman will have to consult print sources. Likewise, those seeing similarities to the Dreyfus Affair depicted by Roman Polanski in An Officer and a Spy (aka J'accuse, 2019) will have to look elsewhere. But, as a piece of courtroom cinema, this undoubtedly holds its own alongside Alice Diop's Saint Omer (2022), which also utilised a pared-down technique to expose the extent to which bigotry can pervert French justice.
Relishing the dialogue (`I'm innocent because I'm innocent') and the occasional opportunity to grandstand, César-winning Belgian Arieh Worthalter excels as the articulate, charismatic, but fierily unpredictable and unknowable Goldman, while Arthur Harari (who earned a hatful of awards for co-scripting Anatomy of a Fall with wife Justine Triet) operates with a blend of quiet dignity and forensic precision, as he strives to rein in his manipulative, but self-sabotaging client and dismantle the credibility of key witnesses while exposing their foibles. Stéphan Guérin-Tillié also imposes himself, as the president of the court, but Nicolas Briançon has been clumsily set up as the villain of the piece, as not only is Maître Garaud deviously cunning, but he's also preeningly performative. Paul Jeanson has an equally thankless task as the stereotypically rodentine Quinet.
Nevertheless, Kahn employs effective shorthand tricks to establish the personalities and prejudices of the witnesses, as they are trapped in the narrow confines of Patrick Ghiringhelli's imagery that afford them little wriggle room. Production designer Guillaume Deviercy and costumier Alice Cambournac reinforce this isolating gambit with their use of browns and blacks in the wooden panelling and judicial robes. However, the only real period sense comes from the outfits of the witnesses, the journalists, and the various onlookers and supporters in the gallery, as Kahn and Hertberg place much emphasis on the fact that this deliberately ambiguous reconstruction is not a time capsule piece, as little has changed in the intervening half century where casual and institutionalised discrimination in a deeply divided country is concerned. It does seem odd, however, that a film so committed to claiming the moral high ground by adhering so stringently to `fact' should have given detractors a stick with which to beat it by having Christiane Succab testify in court, when she never actually attended the trial.
SUGARCANE.
In 2021, anthropologist Sarah Beaulieu revealed that she had come across a possible 200 unmarked graves while surveying the apple orchard at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in in British Columbia. The Catholic-run institution had closed in 1978, but a spate of church fires followed the discovery. The Williams Lake First Nation people vowed to investigate, with a second line of enquiry opening when 93 more `reflections' were found at St Joseph's (aka the Cariboo Indian Residential School) near the Sugarcane Reservation. As his grandmother and father had connections with the latter, Julian Brave NoiseCat joined with Emily Kassie to learn the full extent of the atrocity in Sugarcane.
Captions explain that the network of Indian Residential Schools was established in 1894 to `get rid of the Indian problem', Investigator Charlene Belleau attended St Joseph's School, where her uncle had committed suicide. She is collaborating with archaeologist Whitney Spearing to find evidence of abuse, neglect, and worse against the Catholic priests and nuns who ran the school.
Julian speaks to Ed Archie NoiseCat about his birth at the school, but he's reluctant to revisit his past. He works as a woodcarver and opts out of returning to Sugarcane to see his mother, Kyé7e (aka Antoinette), and watch Julian win a traditional dance competition. She recalls being sent to St Joseph's to stop her from speaking Secwépemc, but she remains one of the last people to still use the language. Kyé7e wishes she had talked more about her experiences, but finds it hard to contemplate the past.
Neighbour Jean William recalls that Ed was taken away from his mother and was found by a nightwatchman before he could be incinerated, which is what commonly happened to the babies fathered by the school priests. Whitney use radar to locate burial places around the grounds, while also finding names, memorials, and testimonials carved into the wood of the barn. Here, Charlene tells Julian that the priests used to string up children for beatings that lasted until they passed out. Tearfully, she implores him to ensure these crimes are exposed, as they have impacted deleteriously on so many lives.
At a meeting with former students, Charlene hears the names of some of the priests, with Rosalin Sam accusing Fr Price of abuse. She explains that she had told her grandmother about her plight, but nuns, priests, Indian agents, and Mounties had all passed the buck until she was beaten by her father and had taken to drink to ease the pain.
As the arson attacks begin, Rick and Anna Gilbert start gathering religious artefacts to protect them. They remain devout Catholics, even though a DNA test has revealed Rick to be half-Irish. He can remember six year-olds at St Joseph's being made to kneel and hold a heavy missal over their heads for an hour as a punishment. Rick also recalls the dread that kids experienced in September when a truck came to the reservation to take them back to the school.
Chief Willie speaks at a rally to mark Orange Shirt Day to commemorate those who died at residential schools or went missing from them. In the aftermath, a close friend's father commits suicide, as recollections continued to traumatise him. When Charlene calls Brother Doughty to ask what he remembers about his time at St Joseph's, he is polite, but evasive and quickly makes his excuses to hang up. She and Whitney have created a white board, with red string linking names and stories, as they try to discover the fate of lost classmates and the teachers who had preyed upon them after they were moved on for repeat offences.
Ed decides not to come home for the reading of the initial report, but Justin feels they need to talk about his father's history, as it also impacts upon him. They take a road trip and chant `All of Canada is Indian land' in the car en route to see Ed's paternal aunt, Martina Pierre. She knows nothing of his birth, but avers that residential schools taught students shame and guilt and that is what is stopping Kyé7e from sharing her experience. Alone together that night, Julian asks Ed to confront the fact that he abandoned him in the same way that he had been discarded. But Ed insists that he had to leave Sugarcane because he was spending his days sobbing without knowing why.
They call on Laird Archie, who is also a St Joseph's survivor. Ed remembers him kicking in his cheekbone after he had run away from the reservation, while Laird recalls that Ed had been nicknamed `The Garbage Kid' because he had been left by his mother. He reveals that seven of the 11 children born to his alcoholic foster parents killed themselves, while he was trying to deal with the fact that the priest who heard his confession at school was the same one who was dragging him out of bed at night.
Meanwhile, Rick has been invited to the Vatican to meet with Pope Francis, as part of an Indigenous delegation. On the coach, he meets Tanya who tells him about four boys from her school who froze to death while trying to escape. She mentions that Fr McGrath was principal and that was the surname of the cousin he had identified after the DNA search.
At the same time, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau comes to Sugarcane at Willie's invitation. He claims that Canada needs to take responsibility for its historical failings and dismisses a journalist's suggestion that he is merely cynically cashing in on a photo op while the mission is in Rome. We see Pope Francis say sorry for what happened and regret that it fell far short of Christ's teaching, although a news report suggests that this was the least he could have said.
Rick seeks out Louis Lougen, Superior General of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate that ran St Joseph's. He also apologises for the abuse suffered by Rick's mother and Rick himself and laments that a sickness got into the Church that the hierarchy was too slow to recognise and eradicate. When he hopes for eventual forgiveness from the survivors, Rick interjects that positive action needs to be taken to ensure the Church isn't just paying lip service.
Following footage of Ed and Julian at a rodeo, Charlene and Whitney find a Williams Lake Tribune article from August 1959 about dairyman Antonious Stoop finding a newborn in an ice cream tub amidst the rubbish awaiting incineration. The child's mother was given a one-year prison sentence for abandonment. Wesley Jackson comes forward to tell them that the priests used to get him to scrape the ashes and bury them in holes in the grounds and he is relieved to unburden himself of his awful secret.
After the wheelchair-bound Cecilia Paul shows where she saw someone digging, burial spots are located and marked. We see a clip of young girls milling around the elderly Fr Dunlop from the tele-documentary, The Eyes of Children, which was filmed at Kamloops in December 1962. Finally, we hear audio of Ed talking to his mother and reassuring her that he still loves her, as she cries about having had to bear the burden for so long.
As closing captions outline that there were 139 residential schools in Canada and 408 in the United States, with the last one closing in 1997, the viewer is left to process the shocking testimony they have witnessed. There's no question that considerable harm was done to a large number of students at these schools and that the Catholic Church has much to answer for both in its management of paedophiles in Holy Orders and in the slowness of its response to the charges made against them. Yet some aspects of the film feel problematic, even though those that have flagged them up online have their own agendas, as they dispute many of the claims made about the schools.
It seems odd to concoct a mystery around Ed Archie NoiseCat when he is widely quoted online (as, indeed, is Julian) as stating that his father was Ray Peters, who married his mother, Antoinette (who was 20 when Ed was born and was not, therefore, a student at St Joseph's), after his birth and miraculous escape. They had seven more children together, which makes it curious that the film should cast doubt over the paternity of the child saved from the St Joseph's rubbish burner in August 1959 - especially when Ed and Julien visit Peters's sister, who openly asks what their enquiry has to do with her brother.
Peculiarly for former Huffington Post journalists, NoiseCat and Kassie also rather blur the evidence of the DNA test taken by the late Rick Gilbert, who draws the conclusion without supporting proof that the Fr McGrath who was at St Joseph's was his father because of a cousinly connection that itself cannot be entirely verified. The same reluctance to present hard fact clouds the presentation of the findings made by Charlene Belleau and Whitney Spearing. This isn't to say that their meticulously researched discoveries aren't accurate - it's just that the film-makers don't seem to be interested in what they are or in naming names or referencing case studies. Such methodology might have bolstered their thesis and played slightly more ingenuously with viewers eager to learn whatever truths are available.
Spending 150 days amassing footage, the sincerity and sensitivity of the film-makers is never in doubt. Neither is the anguish that Ed, Rick, and other survivors have had to endure after attending residential schools where certain staff members abused their positions, while their superiors failed to punish them and, more egregiously, sought to cover up their crimes in sometimes barbaric ways that even extended to infanticide. The courage of those who have come forward is commendable and humbling. Moreover, it contrasts with the more calculated utterances of Pope Francis and Justin Trudeau about truth and reconciliation. But some of the editorial choices made over two and a half years in compiling this Sundance-winning documentary are undeniably puzzling and one wonders why they were made.
NOTES FROM SHEEPLAND.
Anyone who has been wondering when we might get an ovine equivalent of Peter Gerdehag's Women With Cows (2011) or Andy Heathcote's The Moo Man (2013) can cease their conjecture. But there's nothing coyly cosy about Cara Holmes's Notes From Sheepland, which draws on Orla Barry's 2019 book, Shaved Rapunzel, Scheherazade and the Shearing Ram From Arcady, and her i-phone series, Sheepland Diary, to offer a profile of a farming artist that also doubles as a thoughtful treatise on the relationship between humans and animals, ongoing shifts in the agricultural economy, and the parlous plight of the planet.
In 2009, after living in Brussels for 16 years, Orla Barry returned to her late father's Seafield farm in Wexford, with her partner Elsa and their two sons. Needing to make a go of the property, an adviser had informed them that there was money to be made in salad. But he saw sheep in Orla's eyes and her flock has since become her life, as it's not only a source of revenue, but also of inspiration for her art and of solace for her soul.
Among the 34 pedigrees with whom Orla started out is Elsey the Zwartbles, who is still in the field with Lleyns like Gillian, the Ugly Mutt, Big Betty, Michelle, Patsy, Iris, Ivy, Big Daddy, and Little Daddy. Resembling something from an 18th-century Naive painting, the Log is a burly, square sheep, who rubs along with others whose names Orla trips off with an affection rooted in an expertise she has acquired, as her interest in sheep farming grew and it dawned on her that her new passion could also become the basis of the poetry, prose, artefacts, films, sound installations, and performance pieces that are all given a unique shape by her dyslexia.
The writing started with The Barmaid's Diary in Brussels, where Orla enjoyed feeling like an outsider in a vibrant art scene. But she admits to needing to immerse herself in the subjects that inspire her, which is why shepherd isn't a bad alter ego, as she can obsesses about breeding lines while also railing against anthropomorphic fripperies online. Yet, while she needs to scavenge and create, Orla also needs to keep one foot in reality and this hits home relentlessly during the spring lambing season. Images of newborns are presented in a matter of facts of life manner, although even the smallest lamb seems to have an instinctive ability to stare down a camera lens and disarm the viewer.
Immediately feeling at home on her return to Ireland, Orla started wild swimming in the sea as a form of relaxation and connection. Such is her sense of belonging that her farm, art, and sex life have blurred into one and the ease with which she can slip between her different personae feels reassuring. Slow-motion images of her in the water pick out the rings on her fingers and tattoos on her skin, while examples of her varied artforms flash up amidst shots of Orla communing with her sheep, in what is very much a two-way process.
As a male voice choir sings `Rise Up Shepherd and Farmer' on her land, Orla prepares to judge a show. She ensures that she is as spruced up as the contestants. Aware that the appreciation of livestock is as subjective as it is of art, Orla explains what makes a good show animal. But the pleasing bustle of the 2022 Tullamore Show soon gives way to the squelch of gumboots in a muddy field, as Orla recalls the day she had to dive naked into the lake to save a drowning sheep.
As birds murmurate in leaden skies, Orla considers the process that so many Irish farmers are following and ponders its impact on the land. It's only since she had to endure the hard grind of daily life with the flock that she has gained an insight into the economic-ecological balance and realised that there are no easy answers, especially as wool prices have plummeted to the extent that the bags stored on Orla's shed wouldn't even pay the shearer.
Sheep are now bred for meat not their coats and Orla finds it tough guiding shearlings into a truck for slaughter after they have been together for a decade. But what pains her most is that the butchers determine when a ewe is culled because its chops and cuts will best fit the industry staple packaging that will sit neatly and appealingly in supermarket displays.
Attending an auction, Orla notes that farming provides greater gratification than art, as there's a more tangible sense of achievement with the sale of admired stock. Yet, she feels driven to produce pieces for critique, such as `A Growing Enquiry' at the RHA Gallery, which combined sculptural works and song. We see people viewing the works, which include a heap of unsold wool and an outsize jumper bearing words from a conversation Orla had with the man who exports her fleeces to China. But we don't hear any views.
Instead, we return to the bleats of the flock, as Orla contemplates how much longer she can keep doing such strenuous work. She enjoys the interaction with her chickens, geese, cats, dogs, and sheep and relishes the fact that her art is in the doing and that it provides `primal care for the soul'.
Closing with a blast from one of many Alpine horns blown around the farm by Hannah Miller, this delightful documentary is a must see for anyone who snuffled through Viktor Kossakovsky's Gunda (2020) before having their heart broken by Andrea Arnold's Cow (2021). Holmes and Barry certainly confront the business realities of sheep farming and the shot of the two ewes peering through the slats of the reversing lorry will leave an indelible imprint. But this is a study of co-existence rather than exploitation, with the love that Barry has for her flock being evident in the wit, warmth, poignancy, and potency of her art.
Her voiceover consistently challenges viewers - many of whom will doubtless seek out her book, audio output, and her Instagram and Vimeo posts - to realise and reassess. But it resists platitudes and pat answers, while also retaining a degree of privacy. She's also fascinating when discussing her art and it's a shame there isn't the time in the brisk 71 minutes to linger longer, particularly on her sculptural use of language.
What comes across clearly is the closeness of Barry's relationship with her animals, whose personalities are captured with deftness by cinematographer Luca Truffarelli, whose views of the landscape are equally accomplished. Often playfully edited by Holmes and Mick Mahon, the images are complemented by both the sounds of nature and the splendidly diverse score composed by Verity Susman and Matthew Simms.
Holmes has already made an impression with her shorts: The Boring Diary of Frances Noone (2016), The Condom Man (2017), Welcome to a Bright White Limbo (2019), and Leaving Limbo (2020), which was co-directed by Maurice O'Brien. But her willingness here to be creative with actuality leaves sufficient space to examine Barry's own art alongside her shepherding. It's a compelling combination, as is the blend of tranquility and profundity that makes this celebration-cum-lament so beguiling.
REAWAKENING.
Those familiar with classic small-screen showcases like Play For Today, The Wednesday Play, and Armchair Theatre will find much to commend in Reawakening. As with her debut feature, A Long Way From Home (2013), there's nothing particularly cinematic about Virginia Gilbert's directorial style. But she's a fine storyteller and the strong performances she elicits ensure that this domestic drama is both thought- provoking and poignant.
A decade has passed since their 14 year-old daughter, Clare, disappeared and electrician John (Jared Harris) and primary teacher Mary (Juliet Stevenson) make an appeal for information alongside DI Dominic Chambers (Nicholas Pinnock). John finds the experience difficult and keeps reflecting on moments alone with Clare as a young girl (Dayna Dixon) and as a teenager (Harriet Kelleher). In his mind, they might not have had much in common, but they had a connection.
Over supper, Mary chatters about her day and John is surprised to see her recap the events while perched on the bed in Clare's room. While she copes in her own way, John regularly pops into the drop-in centre run by Bella (Niamh Cusack) in the hope that someone might recognise a photo. However, he is taken aback when Ciara (Aoife Gaston) angrily demands to know whether he sexually abused his daughter and wonders if he has ever considered that Clare might not want to be found.
As a freelancer, John often finds himself on the periphery and doesn't engage in banter with his younger co-workers. He also spends lunch hours scouring the streets on the off-chance he can spot Clare. After chasing another illusion, he becomes concerned when Mary doesn't answer his calls. On arriving home, however, he is shocked when his wife tells him that their daughter has come home.
Standing in the doorway, John doesn't recognise Clare (Erin Doherty) and is so uncomfortable with Mary's unquestioning acceptance and affection that he flees and doesn't return for several hours. He remains wary during a second visit and has to be persuaded to join them for cake. But he can't stop himself from asking questions to test Clare's claim to be their child and Mary urges him to ease up, as she is worried that his need for answers will scare Clare off.
He hovers when Clare asks to see her room and remains sceptical when she insists that they did nothing wrong as parents and that it was her own fault that she got into drugs and ran off with the dealer boyfriend who had promised to take care of her. However, she takes him unawares when she remembers the 10th birthday trip to see The Lion King and his joke about the expense of the tickets when she asks to go again.
Still not convinced, he tries to wrap the sugar bowl in clingfilm so it can be tested for fingerprints. But he drops it and curses himself. Following Mary, he sees her meeting Clare at a café and takes her picture on his phone to show around at Bella's shelter. However, he upsets Ciara, who continues to question his motives.
The next time John sees Clare, she brings him a present of a train for the model railway he keeps in the shed and agrees to a DNA test if it will help him accept her. He doesn't tell Mary, as things have become strained between them, as she believes they have been given a second chance and should seize it without conditions. So, she refuses to recognise her daughter when Chambers shows them CCTV footage of a possible sighting in Manchester seven years earlier and John travels alone to meet a woman who knew Clare as Jasmin. She alights upon the old school photo, but not the recent picture on John's phone and he is more convinced than ever that he has a cuckoo in the nest.
Confronting Clare in the café where she works, John is hurt when Mary takes her side and confused when she explains that she has always had the feeling that Clare was dead and is prepared to accept this stranger as a surrogate daughter because she needs to belong to someone and has chosen them to be her family.
As we see phone footage of a young Clare giving a school talk and including the `chain reaction' phrase that John had used when showing her how his model trains work, John and Mary arrive for supper at Clare's flat. She reveals that she's enrolled at college to study hairdressing and Mary blurts out that she can go freelance `like your dad'. Rather than be discomfited by the words, however, John reassures Clare that he is prepared to work at things and he seems more at ease when they go to a restaurant for Mary's birthday.
During a shopping expedition, he bumps into Bella and Ciara, who gives him a long, hard stare when she sees him with Mary and Clare. But he says nothing to Bella or Chambers about the arrangement and is getting into a routine of having Clare around when she brings him tea in the shed. Suddenly, she confesses that Clare had always spoken fondly of her father when they were working as prostitutes together in Manchester. The camera remains on John, as he listens to the revelation that Clare had spent all her money on drugs and had shared details of a life that seemed so idyllic to a roommate who had endured a tough childhood that she had often dreamed of what it must be like to be loved. When she saw the appeal on the telly, she had decided to chance her arm, but had never sought to deceive or exploit. She simply wanted to be part of something and couldn't walk away when she realised how much Mary needed her to keep up the pretence.
Taking the confession onboard, John goes back to watching young women in the street in case one of them is Clare. He has visions of her smiling at him in her school uniform and hears her singing `Early One Morning' in his head (with its line, `how could you use a poor maiden so?'). On getting a call from Chambers, he looks through some evidence photos from a cold case in Manchester and notices a pendant he had bought for Clare. Unable to bear the reality that his daughter is dead (even though images from different stages of her childhood race through his mind), he claims not to recognise anything and returns home to see Mary and Clare baking happily.
Leaving viewers to surmise whether John will continue with what he knows to be a charade, this desperately sad story ends with its ambiguity intact, unlike such similarly themed films as Daniel Vigne's The Return of Martin Guerre (1982) and Clint Eastwood's Changeling (2008). This is closer in tone, however, to Agnieszka Holland's Olivier, Olivier (1993), as a prodigal returns to parents who want to believe in the face of mounting suspicion.
Erin Doherty is skittishly vulnerable as the hesitant chancer hoping to find a niche, although she's off camera for her best moment, as the stranger (whose real name is never revealed) justifies herself to Jared Harris, whose seemingly unchanging expression betrays countless shifting emotions. He's also pretty impassive (albeit in profile) when Juliet Stevenson (effortless empathetic, as ever) explains her reasons for buying into the returning daughter scenario.
In truth, Gilbert makes it easy for herself by excluding any grandparents or siblings and having the self-reproaching John keep the truth from both the police and Bella, who seemingly doesn't know Mary, as she walks past her and Clare in town without any sign of recognition. Ciara spots John, however, and forces him again to confront the accusation of incest (perhaps born out of her own experience) that is left troublingly unanswered, even though the masquerader mentions that Clare only ever spoke of her father with affection.
The flashbacks are neatly integrated by editor Derek Ryan, even though they jar slightly with the social realist tone. Giles Harvey's photography is similarly functional, as Gilbert is more intent on capturing performance than establishing the London milieu in which John and Mary live and work (although Aimee Meek's interiors suggest a colourless, joyless existence). It's also interesting that Gilbert isolates Mary, as she isn't seen with any friends or colleagues (even though one is frequently discussed), while John is shown interacting with workmates and Bella's charges.
Although it's billed as a psychological thriller, this feels more like a carefully constructed character study with melodramatic elements. This makes it feel more like a daytime teleplay than a feature. But, despite its narrative, tonal, and stylistic flaws, this still exudes sincerity and almost does enough to make its unlikely resolution seem plausible.
GOODWIN ISLAND.
In addition to boasting an imposing academic CV, Erik Knudsen has also been directing films since 1991. Perhaps his best-known works are The Raven on the Jetty (2015), which is currently on Netflix, and Cleft Lip (2018), which received a limited theatrical release. His eighth feature, Goodwin Island, has also been booked by a handful of theatres. But this stilted and poorly acted allegory is unlikely to raise his profile.
Mancunian Daniel (Ashley-Luke Lloyd), sister Rosie (Suzanne Fulton), and Kai (Justin McDonald) are supposed to be renovating a house on a small Greek island so that Mr Goodwin can rent it out to guests. However, they have wasted the first three months and assistant Lia (Evangelia Rantou), who arrives to check on their progress, is decidedly unimpressed. She knows that Daniel has been shaken by the recent loss of his father, yet she taunts him about wallowing in his anger with the world instead of getting up and doing something about it.
Mocked by Kai for praying, Lia returns to the mainland. Feeling guilty, Daniel starts covering the furniture in the drawing room in order to replaster and paint the walls. However, having nailed a metal Jesus back on to his wooden cross, he dozes off and wakes four hours later, when Kai and Rosie return from the beach. The Geordie is in combative mood and demands to know why they don't junk everything and put a modern spin on the place.
Getting drunk, he becomes more aggressive in asserting that Goodwin is a fascist colonialist fat cat and he arrives at the brazier in the garden with an armful of books. Claiming to know all he needs to know from Karl Marx, Kai tosses Aesop's Fables into the fire and Daniel incurs his scorn when he stops him from burning a Bible. Rosie tells Kai to calm down, but he insists that they should ignore the absentee landlord and turn the island into a bastion for a new order.
Shortly afterwards, Loukas (Ioannis Moumouris) and girlfriend Themis (Thomie Karydi, descend on the island, seemingly on a whim. The Brits aren't sure what to make of them, as Loukas is bristlingly self-confident and Daniel feels supplanted when he steals a bottle of whisky from the kitchen and suggests over breakfast that they ignore Goodwin (who may not even exist) and claim squatters' rights to establish a social model free from greed, cruelty, and exploitation.
Kai is all in favour, but Daniel watches in dismay, as they smash the statue of the Virgin Mary that Lia had knelt before. He puts it together again, but is worried that Rosie has fallen in with a bad crowd. His relief is evident, therefore, when the middle-aged Ilias Cohen (Nestor Kopsidas) arrives unexpectedly, as he challenges Loukas by demanding that work commences immediately in accordance with Goodwin's express plans.
When Ilias asks about the Marian statue, Themis jumps up to renounce it as a male gaze fantasy designed to deprive women of control over their own bodies and the way they are represented. Rosie protests that the damage can be repaired and Themis accuses her of knuckling under to the patriarchy. Loukas also rips into Kai when he claims they are less rebelling than finding motivation difficult when they know nothing about Goodwin and his perspectives. Warning them that disobedience will not end well, Ilias spends the night in the abandoned chapel, where he informs Daniel that he can tell he's different from the others and that things will turn out okay.
Back at the villa, however, Loukas has declared a takeover and Kai joins him (after a session of piratical laughter) in marching over to the chapel and laying down the law to Ilias that they are taking over and intend to turn their renamed island into an idyllic commune free from the evils of modern capitalism. Dan intervenes by torchlight to prevent a beating and Loukas swears that he will regret his folly. But, as he's picked up next morning by the taciturn Black boatman (Claudius Shajobi), Ilias warns Daniel that Goodwin will not stand for this mutiny and may well send his son to regain control and ensure that the job he ordered is completed.
Surprised because Lia had claimed that her boss had no heir, Daniel breaks the news to the others. But Loukas couldn't care less and Rosie is disappointed in Kai when he takes his side. It turns out they have just lost a child together and Rosie wanders away when Loukas pesters her because Themis has recognised her as the singer of a pop group called Signature. Daniel tries to protect her, but gets pushed over and returns from a walk to find the foursome dressed in bizarre costumes and prancing in a circle chanting, `Worship the beast.' They insist they're only having fun, but he is not amused.
Packing a bag, Daniel raises the flag for the boat to collect him. But he wakes in the chapel next morning to find Mr Goodwin, Jr. (Adebola Olayinka) looking over him. He wants Daniel to oversee the project to its completion and he assembles the others in the kitchen to impose his authority. Loukas argues back, but Junior accuses him of being a corruptor who has used feminism to trick Themis into not having children. They are ordered to leave and Rosie wonders whether Junior has special powers when she looks out of the window and sees him replacing the repaired Marian statue to its plinth.
Yet she fails to prevent the others from attacking Junior and Daniel wakes from a nightmare filled with lines from recent days to see them returning by torchlight from the chapel path. Finding Junior's bandana in the garden, he discovers that the stone lid has been placed on the well beside the chapel. Crying out in despair, Daniel falls asleep beside the well, only to wake to find that the lid has been moved away. Down at the flagpole, he finds the bandana and leaves it fluttering in the wind, as he heads back to the villa expecting to find a miracle has occurred.
Adopting a formal rigour that lends proceedings a certain dignity, Knudsen opts to keep Thanos Tsigas's camera still and distant for much of the time and often holds shots after the action of a scene has ended. A couple of window reflections are neatly done, but there's mostly something Greenawayesque (and occasionally Bressonian) about the technique, while echoes of Basil Dearden's adaptation of J.B. Priestley's They Came to a City (1944) can be felt in the intermingling of religious doctrine and political ideology.
However, the reworking of the biblical themes feels laboured, especially as the characters broach the big ideas it throws up in such a simplistic manner. It's not ideal that the acting is often stiff, but the cast isn't always helped by the declamatory dialogue and the arch deliberation of Knudsen's blocking and pacing. It's also difficult to fathom the timescale of the various comings and goings, while no sense is given of the wider island or how the characters occupy their time when not soapboxing and bickering.
Magda Candiliari's production design and Billy Glew's sound are commendably effective. However, the underwhelming songtrack feels imposed upon both the scenario and the characters, none of whom feel like hip-hop fans. Not that we learn much about them, outside the melodramatic references to dead dads, pop groups, and lost babies. Consequently, it's hard to invest much emotionally or intellectually in their travails or feel even vaguely curious about their post-resurrectional fate.
ASTRAKAN 79.
Martim Santa Rita is a Portuguese potter and ceramic artist. Now in his late fifties, he has rarely spoken about an adventure undertaken when he was 15. However, he has agreed to relive the experiences that shaped and scarred him in Catarina Mourão's hybrid documentary, Astrakan 79, which is screening at The ICA on The Mall in London.
As Martim, Jr. plays a lilting air on an oboe, the camera roves around an empty house with paint-scraped walls. Martim looks at a collection of postcards that have been arranged on a blue wall. Mourão explains in voiceover that Martim had been raised by Communist parents and had been so taken by an article in one of his father's magazines that he decided to go to the Soviet Union to help build a better society. Lying about his age, the 15 year-old applied for a course in fishing techniques at the university at Astrakan on the Caspian Sea. Believing the place was safe and that the experience would be beneficial, Martim's parents sanctioned the trip and he flew on 11 September 1979.
Feeling nervous on the plane, Martim was relieved the customs officials failed to see his camera, as he would take countless photographs during his stay, some clandesinely. Daunted by the size of the country and dismayed by the sameness of the landscape, he met African and Latin American students during the three-day train journey. On arriving in Astrakan, he started working and learning the language, while taking nightly solace in the Beatle cassettes he had brought with him.
Struggling in classes and friendless, Martim finds himself alone over the Christmas holidays. So, when a stranded Peruvian classmate suggests spending New Year's Eve in Baku, they endure another lengthy train journey to Azerbaijan. Here, Martim got drunk for the first time, only to return to a lecture on unauthorised travel. Deciding not to mention the episode in postcards home, Martim stopped sending them, as there were parts of his new life that he didn't want to share.
He fell in love with Maryna, who was slightly older than him. She invites him to her home in the suburbs and he loses his virginity. Back on campus, he sells some jeans and albums to buy film for his camera, as well as cigarettes and alcohol. Maryna takes him to a large building and points to a woman holding a baby, who turns out to be the son she has not been allowed to keep. Thus, when she gets pregnant, she decides to abort and Martim never sees her again.
In March 1980, he writes to his father about wanting to improve their relationship. He also dares to suggest that Portuguese and Soviet people would find it difficult to live in each other's countries and admits to finding it difficult not to argue with his history tutors when discussing Joseph Stalin's postwar policies. But he starts skipping classes as his Russian improves and he begins mingling with older locals.
Among them is Tania, from whom he becomes inseparable, even though she lives in an all-female dormitory. She skates at night and breaks off her engagement to be with Martim. However, the romance ends after he is warded off by a man with a gun. Shortly afterwards, he is chased by cops who find him sleeping on a bench. When his true age is discovered, he is moved to a residential block out of town. Tania finds him again and announces she is pregnant. However, as Martim's friends have discovered that he had cut his wrist with his razor, they decide to club together for his fare home. They forbid him to see Tania before escorting him on the train to Moscow to ensure he takes the plane home.
Back in the empty house, Martim looks at the last photo taken in Red Square. Speaking to camera, he reveals that Tania had seen him off and presented him with an icon she had taken from home. He still has it and fights tears as he acknowledges the irony of arriving with revolutionary fervour and leaving with a religious painting.
Father and son discuss how hard it was for Martim to settle back into life in Portugal. Communist friends considered him something of a failure, while his schoolmates were either envious or indifferent. With his parents feeling guilty for having allowed him to go, Martim felt constricted at home and dropped out of school to get a job to reclaim a degree of independence. He also decided to stop speaking about a trip that had seen his own idealism crumble and had convinced him that the Soviet experiment was failing.
Bottling things up became his way of coping and the pair discuss hiding emotions as a defence mechanism (as revealing secrets leaves one open) and a way of controlling passions that can cloud judgement. They smile at recognising how alike they are, as Martim, Jr. has a secret of his own. As we see Martim making a piscine ceramic, the make-up is applied to create Masari, the drag performer who mimes along moodily to Spanish singer Luz Casal's `Un año de amor'.
Given that Martim is the brother of Mourão's sister's husband and that he is played in the dramatic reconstructions of the Soviet trip by his nephew, Mateus M. Santa Rita, this is something of a family affair. Mourão had similarly explored a taboo in her own family in The Wolf's Lair (2015) and had been developing a documentary about her uncle's experiences as a Communist under the dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar when she switched to the Astrakan story.
Making evocative use of Martim's pictures and postcards, Mourão captures the sense of decay and ennui evident in the latter days of the Leonid Brezhnev era. But this is also a very personal story, as Martim still harbours mixed emotions about his stay, his behaviour, and the people he left behind. The discussion with his son about how the trip impacted upon his personality and future prospects is fascinating. But we don't get much sense of how Martim, Jr. feels about hearing the truth for the first time or how his mother (or any other of Martim's subsequent partners) feel about his treatment of Maryna and Tania. Obviously, he was only a boy at the time, but it would be interesting to hear his mature reflections on these relationships and what they specifically taught him.
For someone of a similar age, this snapshot through a small window of time will have many resonances. The melancholic, contemplative mood is as seductively enticing as the oboe music, while many will recognise the symbol of peeling mid-life walls and the need to make peace with one's ghosts.
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