Monday 2 December 2013

Cityscapes & Heartbreaks


With December finally upon us, we hope you're all starting to feel festive here in the Southside. We're sure there's plenty a Christmassy movie nights up your sleeve in the coming weeks but we'd like to kick-start all of that for you with our December Film Club screening of In Bruges - Tues 3rd Dec at The Glad Cafe (8pm - doors 7:30pm - Tickets £6/5 conc,)

Hit men Ray & Ken have very different takes on the beautifully preserved Flemish city, but as the two swan around sampling the biers & battling the locals one thing becomes clear - where Brendan Gleeson is super likeable & Colin Farrell pretty as can be, its the city of Bruges itself that's the real star of the show!

That got me thinking, what other films are there where the location becomes a character in itself? Films that couldn't (or at least shouldn't) ever be set anywhere else in the world? Films that when you watch, you end up with a serious case of the wanderlust & find yourself booking mini break before the end credits roll.......

Here's my top picks

Lost In Translation

I love Scarlett. I LOVE Bill. I love My Bloody Valentine, The Jesus & Mary Chain & I love the whole Coppola clan. But the thing I love most about Lost In Translation? Tokyo! The dazzling cityscapes framed through Charlotte's lonely hotel room window, that sense of awe & wonder you get from Bob's taxi journey, the Karaoke scenes. For all the chemistry & quick witted banter - Tokyo is the main character here and never has a film made me want to travel to city more than this one. 

Dont Look Now

OK, so Donald Sutherland & Julie Christie grieving the tragic death of their little daughter on the canals of Venice doesn't particularly intrigue me towards the city. Gone are the romantic notions of gondolas in the moonlight, replaced with chilling paranoia, alienation, grief & guilt......and a wee bit of the occult. The imagery created by the water of the weaving canals is so intense, its impossible to imagine the emotional trauma of this film translating to any other setting. Oh, that water.....I've got the chills!

Mulholland Drive

A Lynchian nightmare of epic proportions, and another on the list that doesn't particularly endear me towards the city in question but all out encapsulates the seedy essence of  L.A. The grotesque underbelly of the City of Angels on full display in a fragmented, hallucinatory & nightmarish illusion of a film - "a mournful love poem to all those who have been chewed up & spit out by the Hollywood machine" - Keith Ulhich/Time Out

Manhattan

"He adored New York City. He idolised it all out of proportion
No, make that he romantiscied it all out of proportion.
To him, no matter what the season was, this was still a town that existed in black & white and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwin" - Woody Allen, Manhattan

Woody Allen, the quintessential New Yorker - you could really pick any of his earlier films here to showcase the Big Apple in all its glory, but its Manhattan that truly is his all out love letter to his home town. Enough said!

What would be your picks here? Amelie's quirky Paris? Scorcese's hard hitting Boston in The Departed, Love Actually's Christmas-time in London? Let us know in the comments below.


Speaking of wonderful cities, all of us at The Southside Film Festival would like to express our heartfelt sympathies to the families & friends of those who tragically lost their lives in Glasgow this weekend at The Clutha Vaults Pub. There have been so many wonderful displays of kindness & compassion by the Glasgow people over the last few days, which just goes to show what an amazing city we really have.  

To express our condolences, we would like to advise that we will be donating all box office profits from our screening of In Bruges to an appropriate fund for the families of the bereaved and the pub rebuilding fund once announced. We'll also have donation tins there if people want to donate and will let you know where it all goes. xxx