(Reviews of Flow; When Autumn Falls; Oh My Goodness1; and The Thinking Game)
FLOW.
Artistic choice triumphs over technical capability in Flow, Gints Zilbalodis's Oscar-winning follow-up to his extraordinary debut feature, Away (2019). That was a one-man masterpiece. But, while the 29 year-old Latvian has a number of collaborators on this diluvian odyssey, it's instantly recognisable as an anti-anthropomorphic Zilbalodis original that should, if there's any justice, be adored by young and old alike for decades to come.
A dark grey cat with amber eyes pauses to inspect his reflection in a puddle in the woods. He hears dogs barking and bolts for cover, as they bound past. Slinking away, the cat returns to what seems to have once been his home, as the garden is filled with cat statues and there are drawings in what appears to be an abandoned art studio. Paddy-pawing the bed, the cat settles down to sleep with a contented yawn.
Rising next morning, the cat is drinking from the stream when the dogs lumber into sight. A Golden Labrador plucks a fish from the water and the others follow suit. When two start to fight and a flip-flopping fish lands on the grass, the cat seizes his chance and sprints away. The baying hounds follow and the cat drops his prize before hiding under a protruding branch, as the canines are distracted by a hapless rabbit.
They soon come haring back, however, as a distant noise cause the cat to prick up his ears. A herd of deer thunder through the clearing and the cat is nearly caught under their hooves. However, there is no escaping a giant wave that cascades through the forest and sweeps up the cat, who manages to swim to a low-hanging branch. The Labrador tries to clamber up and the branch snaps, but the cat succeeds in reaching the shore.
As he pads back to the house, the cat is aware that he is being followed by the Labrador. Yet, while the dog protects him from a towering secretarybird, the cat hisses when the Labrador tries to follow him through the broken upper window that allows him access to his bedroom.
Waking next morning, the cat is dismayed to see the Labrador fretting in the garden, as the water is still rising. Realising that he also needs to find a new sanctuary, the cat starts to approach the Labrador, as a boat floats into sight. However, several other dogs are aboard and the cat decides to seek alternative transport. Climbing up the biggest statue, as the house is submerged, the mewling cat is frightened by the arching back of a whale. But, just as the tide is about to engulf the tip of the statue's pricked ear, a sailboat hoves into view and the cat is able to scramble aboard, where he's confronted by a capybara, who sniffs him with idle curiosity before settling down for a nap.
When it starts to rain, the cat scuttles under cover beside his snoring companion. In the morning, he sits on the prow and gazes at the stone pillars rising out of the water. He also notices secretarybirds circling overhead and accidentally tumbles into the flood. Staying underwater, he avoids some predatory swoops, only for the whale to swim beneath him and boost him to the surface. A passing bird clutches the cat in its claws and starts flying towards the pillars. However, the cat wriggles so much that he works himself loose and plummets downwards.
Luckily, he lands on the sail and is able to use his claws to arrest his fall. The capybara is still snoozing, while the secretarybird perched in the stern merely gives the cat a quizzical look before taking off. Relieved to be safe, the cat starts washing itself. But the capybara stirs and they join forces to move the tiller to steer the boat towards a ruined building. They spot a ring-tailed lemur placing crockery, cutlery, and assorted jars into a basket, which the capybara hauls aboard and the lemur decides to join the crew. The cat marks the occasion by producing a hairball.
Climbing the mast, the cat has a dream that he is being circled by a herd of deer. Shinning down, he tilts the tiller to take the boat towards land and the capybara grabs a branch laden with bananas. Coming to rest, the animals jump ashore, with the lemur finding a rope-encased glass float, which is pushes towards the vessel. As the capybara feasts on some flowers, the cat looks at the fish swimming in the water, but doesn't know how to catch them.
The Labrador bounds up and seems pleased to see the cat again. As he introduces himself t his new travelling companions, the cat is surprised when the secretarybird from the boat drops a fish at his paws. The bird is protecting its young and the cat peers over a ledge to see dozens of secretarybirds nesting below. Unfortunately, the dog and the lemur bundle him to their view and he has to flee. When an alpha bird corners him, the secretarybird who had fed him intervenes on the cat's behalf and a fight breaks out.
Seeing that his rescuer has damaged a wing, the cat ushers them towards the boat and the creatures sit on the bank as the sun sets. Stirring in his sleep, the cat sees the secretarybird with a claw on the tiller and scuttles across the deck to lie close to it. On waking, the cat tries to emulate the bird's erect posture and falls in the water. The Labrador rummages in the lemur's basket for something to chew and has it snatched back. Hearing a familiar sound, the lemur beckons to a boat with several ring-tails aboard. But the cat hisses at them when they leap across to admire the lemur's hand mirror and they quickly return from whence they came.
Bored, the Labrador steals the glass float and chases after it when secretarybird kicks it across the deck. However, it boots the sphere into the water, as they approach a deserted city. The lemur is so cross at losing its prize possession that it jumps on the bird's head and, in the skirmish, the sail becomes entangled in the branches of a tree. While the Labrador and the capybara splash around in what has essentially become a canal, the cat bobs down with the fishes, which glisten in the refracted light.
Hearing a rumbling, the animals scramble back aboard, just as the whale rises beside them to create a swell that frees the boat. As they float on, the cat bats at the lemur's tale and chases after a sunbeam cast by its mirror. He is surprised to see the Labrador also rolling on its back and, when it goes on a fishing expedition, the cat shares his catch with the dog and the secretarybird.
Such harmony doesn't last long, however, as the animals see some stranded dogs in a bell tower and insist on rescuing them, against the secretarybird's better judgement. No sooner are they aboard than they scoff the remaining fish and snap the handle off the lemur's mirror. Anxious to avoid the bickering, the cat scales the mast, only for the boat to run into a heavy storm in the vicinity of some enormous standing stones and he falls on to the deck. Nuzzled by the capybara, the cat revives in time to see the secretarybird fly away.
Distraught, the cat jumps overboard and paddles furiously to reach a rocky outcrop. He rushes up what seems to be an eroded pillar and finds his friend sitting alone. Suddenly, they are swept up in a maelstrom of light and colour that takes the bird upwards. But the cat is returned to earth and he hastens back to the rocks in the hope of seeing the boat. Plunging into the swell, the cat clings to the lemur's float, as it happens to pass by.
Drifting inshore, the cat hops on to some rocks in time to watch a chasm open and drain the water away. Scurrying through the woodland, he comes across a lemur who leads him to a ruined amphitheatre that has been taken over by its kind. The cat sees the basket of trinkets and is disappointed when his friend shuns him because it's busy showing off its mirror. As he turns to go, however, the cat is joined by the lemur, who leads him to the boat, which has been grounded in a tree that is hanging over a ravine. The dogs bay for help and take courage to leap to land. But the capybara can't jump that far and the cat hops on to a branch in order to free a rope that the hounds can use to rock the hull and bring it closer to land. The other dogs run away, leaving the cat and the capybara stranded in the boat. But the Labrador and the lemur summon sufficient strength to pull on the rope and the pair spring to safety, just as the roots slide and send the boat and the tree hurtling into the depths.
Resting on the grass, the animals renew acquaintance, as the Labrador licks the cat's head. But he hears a plaintiff noise and darts away to find the whale beached in the forest. He brushes against him in an effort to provide some comfort, but isn't sure what he can do. Sitting down, he stares into a small pool that is being ruffled by the breeze. In the reflection, he sees the Labrador, the capybara, and the lemur flanking him and he knows he has found friends he can rely upon.
As the credits roll, Zilbalodis offers us the reassuring sight of the whale's fin poking out of the sea, with the sun glinting on the horizon. It's a touching way to end a film that is so replete with Miyazakian moments of purity, poignancy, and beauty that it's easy to forget that one is watching pixels that have been manipulated using Blender 3-D animation software. The animals aren't as photorealistic as they might be in pictures with bigger budgets, but they have character and behave in a natural manner, particularly the wide-eyed cat, who has been referred to as a `he' by Zilbalodis in interviews.
Anyone familiar with feline behaviour will recognise the many little traits that make the character so appealing and authentic, as cats are far more emotionally demonstrative than one might expect. They are also intrepid and resourceful, although Zilbalodis stops short of having his plucky hero do anything more far-fetched than learning how to steer a boat.
He and co-writer Matīss Kaža have similarly ensured that the storyline remains reasonably plausible by resisting explanations for the absence of humankind and the reasons for the deluge and by skirting those tiresome screenwriting platitudes about conflict, crisis, journey, and resolution. There's still plenty to ponder, but the eco messages and musings on mutual trust are not hammered home and the same restraint is applied to the action sequences, which are refreshingly free from the kind of cacophonic crash-bang video game antics that have become de rigueur in animated features from around the world.
Nevertheless, some of the camera movements are exhilarating, while the backdrops achieved with director of animation Léo Silly-Pélissier - whether depicting the natural world or crumbling civilisations - are uniformly evocative and effective. The music co-composed with Rihards Zaļupe is equally astute in gauging the difference between earned emotion and cloying sentimentality. And whoever made the animal noises deserves an award in the shape of Animal Magic legend, Johnny Morris.
For creating a film that is universally accessible, graphically sophisticated, and so respectful of animal intelligence, Zilbalodis was rewarded with an Oscar. Some were surprised by his win, but it was thoroughly merited. But what pressure will be on his shoulders when it comes to his third feature - although the toughest challenge face his fellow animators, as how can they possibly view this and serve up the same old slam-bam CGI dross with a clear conscience?
WHEN AUTUMN FALLS.
Unpredictability has been the watchword since François Ozon made his feature bow back in 1998 with Sitcom. Most recently, he has followed a study of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church (By the Grace of God, 2019) with a coming out drama (Summer of 85, 2020), a treatise on assisted dying (Everything Went Fine, 2021), a Fassbinder reboot (Peter von Kant, 2022), and a period screwball about a murderous actress (The Crime Is Mine, 2023). Now, he slows the pace for When Autumn Falls, a deceptively dense thriller that is flecked with grace notes echoing Georges Simenon and Claude Chabrol.
Having listened to a sermon about Mary Magdalene at the Catholic church in her Burgundian village, eightysomething Michelle (Hélène Vincent) works in her vegetable garden before preparing a pumpkin soup. The next day, she drives old friend Marie-Claude (Josiane Balasko) to the prison where son Vincent (Pierre Lottin) is incarcerated and the pair go mushroom picking in the woods the next morning.
Michelle is expecting a visit from her difficult daughter, Valérie (Ludivine Sagnier), and her beloved tweenage grandson, Lucas (Garlan Erlos). She wants everything in her cottage to be just so and pauses for thought as she gets a pair of wine glasses out of a cupboard. She uses a picture book to check the mushrooms are safe and dozes in front of a roaring fire after she finishes baking a quiche.
Lucas is delighted to see Michelle, but Valérie is busy arguing on the phone with estranged husband, Laurent (Malik Zidi). As Lucas doesn't like mushrooms and Michelle claims that Valérie has spoilt her appetite, they don't eat the boletes, although the latter tucks in while badgering her mother to sign over the cottage so she won't have to pay as much death duty. When reminded that she has already been gifted Michelle's apartment in Paris, Valérie merely shrugs before asking about Marie-Claude and her idiot son.
When Michelle and Lucas return from a walk, they see Valérie being loaded into an ambulance. She accuses her mother of trying to poison her with the mushrooms and takes Lucas back to Paris. Although she doesn't press charges, Michelle is shaken by the episode and eagerly offers Vincent a job in her garden when he's paroled. Marie-Claude is grateful, but she doesn't quite trust her son, who has messed up several times before. However, Michelle is pleased with his work, although she can't hold back the tears when she sits on the swing and wishes things were different.
Pained by a trip to Paris fails to change Valérie's mind about keeping Lucas away from his grandmother, Michelle tells Vincent to take his stuff to the dump. However, she's touched when she finds him in the garage playing with the toys and she pities him because she knows life with Marie-Claude was often tough. He is very fond of Michelle and eavesdrops when she tells her friend about Valérie's callousness.
During a health check, Michelle confides in the doctor that she thinks she's going senile and can no longer be sure that she didn't poison Valérie on purpose. But she's crushed when she learns that her daughter has died in a fall from her balcony. However, she doesn't know that Vincent had paid her a visit to ask her to cool down and that Valérie had fallen while they were arguing. Marie-Claude is appalled by the news, but keeps quiet because Vincent tells her that he couldn't cope with returning to prison.
Summoned to Paris to meet the heavily pregnant captain conducting the inquiry (Sophie Guillemin), Michelle suggests that Valérie never got over the fact that her mother was a prostitute and wonders if she hadn't committed suicide because she had work and money problems on top of her divorce. As Lucas doesn't want to live with Laurent in Dubai, he comes to stay with Michelle. However, as she drives home from dropping him off at school, she gets a visitation from Valérie's ghost, who accuses her of killing her to get control of Lucas.
Marie-Claude jumps to the same conclusion when she hears the Valérie has given Vincent money to open a small bar. She blames her for putting her son at risk, only to collapse and be rushed to hospital. When they meet at the grand opening, Marie-Claude keeps an eye on Lucas, while Michelle dances with Vincent. He defends her when a drunken customer calls her `an old whore' and Marie-Claude frets that her son will find a way to ruin his big chance.
Bullied at school because of Michelle's past, Lucas echoes Valérie's phrase about her making him sick. But she explains that it was her only way to survive and provide for his mother and she hopes he can come to terms with things because she can't change anything. She can, however, ask Vincent to ward off the bullies (`another favour') and promised the dying Marie-Claude that she will keep an eye on him (even though she now knows he was in Paris on the day Valérie died) because he always means to do the right thing, even if he sometimes blunders.
At Marie-Claude's funeral, Lucas persuades the distraught Vincent to come into the church and he walks behind the hearse when it wends its way through the village to the cemetery. Some time later, Michelle is talking to Valérie's ghost at her grave when the police captain asks her for a word. She reveals that she thinks Vincent might have killed Valérie. But, even though her daughter's spirit stares at her through the window, Michelle insists that Vincent was in her garden all day and dismisses the idea that he had been in Paris and left his phone at home on purpose to avoid being traced. The captain shows Lucas CCTV pictures of a hooded man who passed him at the apartment block door on the day his mother died, but he is adamant that the man wasn't Vincent.
Unconvinced, the captain closes the case and a decade passes. Lucas (Paul Beaurepaire) visits during a university break in Paris. Vincent collects him from the station and teases him about the pointlessness of studying art history, while each bashfully concedes that he doesn't have a girlfriend. Over lunch, Michelle gives Lucas the keys to the cottage and he promises not to sell it. Walking in the woods, Michelle gets left behind when she stops to watch some deer. Valérie appears beside a tree and extends a hand. Michelle is lying peacefully in the ferns when Lucas finds her.
The secret to this absorbing drama lies in its appreciation of what to leave unsaid. Ozon and co-scenarist Philippe Piazzo may not spell out how Valérie met her end, but they leave so many elliptical clues that most viewers should be able to piece together a credible version of events. Perhaps the least subtle aspect are the opening close-ups of Michelle as she listens to Jesus explaining why Mary Magdalene deserved a second chance. But it slowly becomes clear that a woman who only stopped being a sex worker after her grandson was born has picked up a few tips about how to protect herself and not leave any evidence behind.
The bucolic beauty of the autumnal shades and the homely simplicity of Michelle's clothes slyly throw the audience off the scent and, in this regard, Ozon makes as assured use of Christelle Maisonneuve's interiors as he does Jérôme Alméras's photography and Pascaline Chavanne's costumes. Anita Roth's meticulously calibrated editing and Evgueni and Sacha Galperine's unsettlingly cosy score similarly reinforce a tone that would have had Chabrol purring his approval.
Within this framework, the actors simply have to underplay and it's notable that Ludivine Sagnier is the only one who is permitted to exhibit any extreme emotion, as she meets hospitality with hostility. After so long feigning responses to please her clients, Michelle has developed a level of control that Hélène Vincent displays with insouciant sang froid. Young Garlan Erlos shares her ability to withhold, which makes Lucas's chat on the swing with Sophie Guillemin's cop all the more disconcerting.
Fittingly, for a study of moral contradictions and deceptive appearances, Michelle may go to church, but it's Marie-Claude who has the conscience, as she laments having let Vincent down by being such a poor mother. But Josiane Balasko also makes her more naive than Michelle, who exploits Vincent (the excellent Pierre Lottin) for her own ends, while seeming to be extending the hand of kindness. Such an ironic insight into human nature makes the story worthy of Simenon, although he probably wouldn't have succumbed to the supernatural chicanery. But we are so used to Ozon being boldly unpredictable that he just about gets away with it.
OH MY GOODNESS!
Laurent Tirard was just 57 when he died in Paris last September. A former critic, he had been a director for two decades, having made his feature bow with The Story of My Life (2004). Acclaim followed for Molière (2007) before he took to the works of René Goscinny with Little Nicholas (2009), Asterix and Obelix: God Save Britannia (2012), and Nicholas on Holiday (2014). He teamed with Oscar winner Jean Dujardin for Up For Love (2016) and Return of the Hero (2018), which were both released in the UK, unlike The Speech (2020), which was adapted from a novel by Fabrice Caro.
His final feature, however, has made the cut, even though it was actually completed in 2022. Showing as Oh My Goodness! rather than Juste ciel!, it's a convent comedy that can't resist jokes about Robert Wise's The Sound of Music (1965). But it showcases Tirard's talent for timing gags and his faith in humanity, for all its glorious flaws.
Mother Véronique of the Ascension (Valérie Bonneton) humours Sister Béatrice (Guilaine Londez) when she insists the daisy she's found in the convent garden is a miraculous eidelweiss. She also happy to let Sister Bernadette (Claire Nadeau) to take a vow of silence and allow Sister Augustine (Camille Chamoux) to be a bit over-zealous in her determination to atone for past sins. However, she's less forgiving of Novice Gwendoline (Louise Malek) and her frequent infractions of the Benedictine Code, the latest of which is claiming the toaster she had won at bingo at the local old people's home.
At Gwendoline's suggestion, the sisters enter a road cycling race with a €25,000 prize in order to raise funds for the hospice. Mother Véronique is furious, but the Father Abbot (Jean-Michel Lahmi) thinks it's a splendid idea and promises to wangle a trip to Rome if they win. After dreaming of hanging out at the Vatican with Pope Francis (Serge Peyrat), Mother Véronique becomes ultra-competitive and uses guilt to persuade members of a rival team to drop out so that her inept charges can win the money for the old folks.
She's further helped when Sister Béatrice accidentally backs into some other riders while on a spying mission. Coach Pierre (François Morel) is furious, but Gwendoline shames him with a sob story about the nuns being the only ones to give her a chance after society had abandoned her for being different. Showing off her tattoo, Sister Augustine confides over a glass of wine that night that she was also on the wrong path before a trafficker's bullet was stopped by a handy bible and she abandoned her biker gang for the veil.
While they are celebrating the withdrawal of their competition, Mother Joséphine de la Rédemption (Sidse Babett Knudsen) arrives on the doorstep requesting shelter for her charges, Sister Véronique (Marie Jade Debard), Sister Lucie (Véronique Müller), and Novice Charlotte (Claire Duburcq).
Véronique and Joséphine have been rivals since their schooldays. So, on learning that the sisters have come to enter the race to raise funds for their prisoner rehabilitation initiative, Véronique puts them in the attic and has Béatrice tell them tales of a gruesome exorcism that had happened in the room. She also keeps them awake with her snoring. But the Redemptionists are made of stern stuff and put on a trick cycling display while Véronique and Joséphine fight over ringing the chapel bell.
After the pair compete to catch the Lord's ear while saying grace, the Father Abbot orders them to stop bickering in confirming that both convents can take part in the race. Furious, Véronique starts sabotaging her guests by chaining their bikes together and polishing floors so they're super slippery. Failing to mention such antics in confession, she agrees to Pierre putting all his efforts into Gwendoline, who has powers of speed and endurance that surprise the visiting nuns when she zooms past them on a training run.
Even Charlotte is impressed by Gwendoline and feels sorry for her when her postulancy ends and Joséphine declares that she is clearly not suited to the religious life and orders her to leave. She also accuses Véronique of trying to poach Charlotte and she exacts her revenge by digging up the pothole on the road that had earlier caused Sister Bernadette to crash and left her with an arm and leg in plaster in a wheelchair. Furthermore, Sister Augustine spikes a cake and insists that the visitors finish it off.
Everyone has tummy aches the next morning, apart from Véronique and Joséphine. They line at the start, with the latter letting her opponent sprint off before coasting past her while popping a wheelie. Tipped off by Gwendoline, Véronique uses her habit as a sail on a windy flat stretch. But her conscience gets the better of her on the descent and she overtakes Joséphine to crash into the pothole and go flying over her handlebars. Glad to have lost the race, but kept her faith, she wheels her bike in behind Joséphine, who gives her a sporting round of applause. The Father Abbot declines her request to go to Rome, but she is thrilled when Joséphine sends her a photo of her and Pope Francis holding her picture.
Full of fun and played with gusto by fine ensemble, this feels like the remake of a film about bicycling monks that could have starred Fernandel and Louis de Funès in the 1950s. And that's very definitely a compliment. Shame so few other critics in this country have failed to see the funny side.
Valérie Bonneton is particularly good as the rule-book mother superior whose dander is elevated by her old sparring partner, who is portrayed as a superior mother with po-faced glee by Sidse Babett Knudsen. As the reformed tearaway, the naive miracle-seeker, and the hopeless novitiate, Camille Chamoux, Guilaine Londez, and Louise Malek all have their moments. But they're upstaged by the silent Claire Nadeau, who times the flourishes of the whiteboard she uses to communicate to a tee.
Eric Blankaert's photography is as serviceable as Mathieu Lambole's score. But editors Anne-Sophie Bion and Sahra Mekki construct the slapstick episodes with a finesse that enables Tirard to bow out on a wink and a prayer.
THE THINKING GAME.
Fascinating though it is, Greg Kohs's The Thinking Game is essentially an infomercial. It profiles Demis Hassabis, the son of a Greek Cypriot father and a Singaporean mother, who was born in London in 1976 and has spent the last 49 years surprising people.
A chess prodigy, he had decided by the age of 12 that the brain power involved in a major tournament could be better harnessed to solving humanity's problems. Forced to wait a year to study computer science at Queens' College, Cambridge, he joined the leading video game company, Bulldog, and realised that games could help provide pathways in science and he followed a PhD in neuroscience at University College, London by forming the DeepMind company to prove his point.
Shane Legg extols Hassabis's virtues (but everyone does) and commends his ambition to `solve intelligence' so that humankind could benefit from the information made available. The machine created to edge towards Artificial General Intelligence started out by learning how to play Pong. But it was soon beating Go masters at their own game and Google was sufficiently impressed to shell out £400,000 for DeepMind in 2014.
Resisting efforts to relocate to Silicon Valley, Hassabis formed AlpaFold to tackle the problem of protein folding. Frustrated by the programme's limitations in winning the 13th edition of the Critical Assessment of Techniques For Protein Structure Prediction (CASP), Hassabis and his team (several of whom appear in the film) used Covid lockdowns to approach the problem from a new angle. As a result, CASP declared that the issue was essentially solved and Hassabis followed becoming a member of the Royal Society by receiving the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2024, with John Jumper.
Having previously worked with Hassabis on AlphaGo (2016), Kohs clearly has the insider track on his remarkable career. In the footage amassed over five years, he emerges as driven, but grounded and no one has a bad word to say about him. Perhaps that's why Kohs omitted the crucial point that Hassabis is a Liverpool supporter (as all the best people are). The complex matters under discussion are explained with clarity and succinctness, although those with denser knowledge of the field may be frustrated by the primer level of analysis.
Some might also have wanted to know more about Google's motives for acquiring DeepMind and its role in ongoing research. More might also have been said about what AGI could mean for the future of humanity and the planet. But, going on this encomium, with its sleek animated segments and cannily staged interactions with a well-spoken AGI presence, Hassabis's conviction that it will be a power for good should offer a degree of reassurance.
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