Film

Mike Leigh’s new film has Timothy Spall as artist William Turner. It recreates the artist’s life and early 19th century England in meticulous detail with warts, bad teeth and all.

The acting is of the highest level, the film looks great and is as accurate in the facts it tells as the costumes and landscapes it recreates.

The son of a barber and wig maker of Covent Garden, Turner sold directly to his clients, mostly the gentry, and did so as an equal. He was a difficult and taciturn man who lived for his art and was never part of a movement.

Concerning Violence is a new film by Göran Hugo Olsson, (director of The Black Power Mixtape), based on Frantz Fanon’s classic book The Wretched of the Earth. It is illustrated with archival film of colonial realities and national liberation struggles taken from the vaults of Swedish Television.

The film is divided into nine sections ranging from footage of guerilla warfare in Mozambique to the pillaging of natural resources from former colonies. The film footage is superb.

“We’re going to break an unbreakable Nazi code and win the war” says Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) near the start of this new biopic of the computer pioneer.

For anyone who doesn’t know the story, well they do now. And that’s one of the problems for the film makers. So they tweak the plot, glam it up by getting Keira Knightly to do the exposition and add some extra espionage in case the raw elements aren’t enough.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Lou Bloom, an unemployed thief who becomes a freelance video journalist to escape a life selling scrap metal.

With the aid of a police scanner and a car he is first to the scene of crimes, films the immediate aftermath and sells the footage to a local news channel.

While ostensibly a crime thriller, the real tension doesn’t come from the crimes, but from Bloom’s increasing desperation to appease the demands of news editors.

Hundreds of people came to the see the preview of Tony Benn: Will and Testament in Chesterfield. Many of us had known Tony Benn as our MP and campaigned alongside him. It was very emotional to see him standing in his kitchen, smoking the famous pipe and talking directly to us. These were the thoughts and images he wanted us to remember as he faced the end of his life.

A British soldier is deployed to a divided country he knows nothing about. The army is there to keep the peace but who is “friendly” and who is “hostile”, and who can he trust? This flawed but entertaining thriller could have been set during any number of wars, but this is 1971 in Belfast.

Many of us grew up in a town like Burnsworth. “Burnsworth is a shithole”, says the graffiti put there by John, the main character, who moves from a no-hope school to a dead-end job with a grim inevitability.

But thanks to a chance encounter at the decidedly uncool school disco, he discovers Northern Soul and a new world of black music, dancing, record collecting and amphetamine fuelled all-nighters.

Adapted from Bola Agbaje’s Olivier award winning play, Gone Too Far! is a hilarious and shrewdly observed comedy with a storyline you can relate to and truthfully depicted characters.

The film is set in vibrant and culturally diverse Peckham, south London. The plot follows young teenager Yemi, born and brought up in Britain and obsessed with his street cred, and his estranged brother Iku, an excitable and proud Nigerian who is new to London.

Director Francesco Rosi, re-released 12 September
It is exciting news that we can once again see Francesco Rosi’s Salvatore Giuliano on the big screen. It is a very special movie.

Director Mohammad Rasoulof, released 12 September
Dissident Iranian Mohammad Rasoulof’s Manuscripts Don’t Burn is a brave and brutal depiction of corruption, violence and state censorship in today’s Iran. He defied a 20-year work ban to make this chilling political thriller which he has been unable to officially show in Iran. It is more than an exposure of state repression – it’s personal.