Phillip Bergson

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Not only the not-so-very United Kingdom is facing crises of identity and culture-clashes currently, in the months apres-BREXIT and avant the various elections looming across Europe, but the cinema itself seems to be going through spasms of schizophrenia, as evidenced by the fiasco of the Academy Awards announcement of Best Picture (unwittingly split between a pastiche Hollywood musical and a very diverse coming-of age drama set in Miami) and the continuing oscillations for  box-office-hits between costly remakes--even of cartoons!--and ever-sillier franchise epics, and tenderer independent pictures which seem hardly to be released but to escape and somehow limp around the festival circuit and, succoured by  critical acclaim, occasionally sneak onto an actual cinema screen somehow, somewhere.But that is the ever-present conflict between an art and an industry.Sir David Lean called film the best near-art form of the 20th century, and who was it who when asked what he thought of the British Film Industry, said that would be a good idea?

As Cannes officially embraces a VR entry, at least in short form, for the first time in the Official Selection, and everywhere young cineastes are not only viewing but making films on mobil phones, I want to raise the flag for the well-made film screened in a well-designed cinema.Film London has lately hosted a couple of Exhibitors' Breakfasts to showcase a host of local-and some national-organisations booking and promoting films on all kind of screens and recently selected two marvellous new venues,the Everyman Muswell Hill which has renovated the legendary Art Deco Odeon, retaining and restoring its main auditorium,complete with balcony or circle area, while also inserting a couple of smaller luxury halls, a well-run bar and cafe area and in warmer weather a large terrace, adjacent to many shops,buses and life in general in this leafy northern suburb of the capital. The other in the heart of the Huguenot East  End and fringing the City of London is the Curzon Aldgate, a  five-screen new-build art-house complex where in spite of the few number of seats individually screens are large,dimensions are generous, and there is the most enormous foyer, currently fitted out with fashionably retro "found" decor, fotos, books and magazines and doubling as an attractive cafe and bar with more than drinks served day and apparently night. It is close to an Underground station (Aldgate East,in which there is currently no signage to the cinema so check your exit carefully or you''ll end up kilometres away as I did!) and nestles in a pedestrian enclave of offices and eateries.If it introduces a Happy Hour for film tickets,I would happily trek there to see anything.

Less recently the Film Distributors' Association launched day-long previews of usually three new features, occasionally with a guest attendee for a Q and A selon arrivage (Ken Loach and the I.Daniel Blake team literally dropped in on their way to its official post-Cannes UK premiere last year) and these are useful catch-ups for invited press,media,and critics. They tend to be more mainstream, about-to-be-released features but lately I have managed to catch some top-quality new British productions in screening conditions slightly superior to some of the private preview theatres, as these movie marathons now unreel in the Vue, Piccadilly, a five-screen miniplex in the very heart of the West End,and although auditoria range in seating capacity from much less than a hundred to slightly over 200, each screen is large and sightlines are good, as are projection and sound.

The opulent spectacle of VICEROY'S HOUSE did not look out of place on such a screen, though this intelligent, well-cast and -performed  recreation of our Imperial "brexit" from India does not seem to have stayed the course on release,at least in what are left of the British Isles so far.Hugh Bonneville makes a dignified Mountbatten with Gillian Anderson excellent as his wife (though her alleged amour with Nehru  seems to have been airbrushed out of the script) and there is a rich cast  of historic cameos in sumptuous settings, with a romantic cross-caste sub-plot that does not deserve some of the criticisms it generated.

Let me also bring to  your attention THE LOST CITY OF Z,a fascinating Fitzcarraldo-like epic of the flawed British explorer Percy Fawcett(expertly impersonated by Charlie Hunnam with Tom Holland as his anarchic son) and a fascinating true-life  memoir of the occupation by the Nazis of Jersey ANOTHER MOTHER'S SON immaculately played by Jenny Seagrove, John Hannah and erstwhile pop star Ronan Keating; a capable contemporary detective thriller CITY OF TINY LIGHTS starring Star Wars "Rogue" Riz Ahmed as an Anglo-Pakistani gumshoe; the literary flash-back drama THE SENSE OF AN ENDING with Jim Broadbent at his least avuncular and Charlotte Rampling at her most enigmatic; and best of all,a  delightful Dunkirk-era spoof(though also evidently inspired by a real-life story of a wartime script girl THEIR FINEST  which also plays to the best strengths of British cinema, recreating the past -- especially that of the Second World War,= with convincing decor and skilled playing for a large and recognisable cast,  but with humour, wit and warmth. More on each of these anon.

PHILLIP BERGSON

www.launchingfilms.com