The Boy and the Heron ★★★★★
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Voices of Luca Padovan, Robert Pattinson, Karen Fukuhara, Gemma Chan, Christian Bale, Mark Hamill, Florence Pugh, Willem Dafoe, Dave Bautista. 12A cert, gen release, 124 min
The latest, lovely animation from Miyazaki returns to the postwar Japan of his childhood. The headstrong protagonist, after losing his mother in a hospital fire, moves to the country, where is attended by several classic Ghibli crones. His father, like Miyazaki’s own, runs an aviation factory and is married to his former sister-in-law. The boy’s understandably conflicted feelings seem to manifest the grey heron of the title, a mysterious bird in a tower with a ghostly past. It’s a thrilling journey for both young viewers and those with more cause to ponder the afterlife. Full review TB
Tish ★★★★☆
Director Paul Sng. Featuring Maxine Peake, Shin-Fei Chen, Ella Murtha. Curzon Home Cinema, 90 min
Sng’s exemplary documentary chronicles the life and work of the late photographer Tish Murtha. Maxine Peake gives a passionate voice to Murtha’s stingingly observant notes from the margins of British society. Her words remain depressingly urgent, articulating a tragic throughline from Thatcher’s Tories to contemporary Newcastle. Murtha died in poverty in 2013, choosing between heating and eating under Tony Blair’s New Deal. Her photographs continue to startle, whether taken in her own borough or in Soho, where she documented sex workers during the 1980s. It is, as several contributors note, the antithesis of “poverty porn”. TB
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Next Goal Wins ★★☆☆☆
Directed by Taika Waititi. Starring Michael Fassbender, Oscar Kightley, Kaimana, David Fane, Rachel House, Beulah Koale, Will Arnett, Elisabeth Moss. 12A cert, gen release, 103 min
And now we can finally put the pandemic to bed. Close to four years after it began shooting, Taika Waititi’s alleged soccer comedy comes limping pathetically into largely uninterested cinemas. In an adaptation of a hit documentary, a miscast Fassbender stars as new coach to the failing American Samoa soccer team. There are essentially just two characters in the film. One is Fassbender’s sour, sozzled protagonist; the other is the collective mass of cutesy, infantile quirk that is the entire island population. Feels like a southern Pacific variation on Wild Mountain Thyme. Baffling stuff. DC
Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire ★★☆☆☆
Directed by Zack Snyder. Starring Sofia Boutella, Charlie Hunnam, Michiel Huisman, Djimon Hounsou, Doona Bae, Ray Fisher, Cleopatra Coleman. Netflix, 134 min
Tedious Netflix space opera from the director of 300 and lots of boring DC rubbish. If Star Wars didn’t exist critics would focus here on the shameless references to Seven Samurai. The awful thing also plays like yet another gift for the Johnny One-Books who still jaw about Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Boutella is fine as farm girl who rises up against a totalitarian empire. There is a lot of space travel. A great many uninteresting people are introduced. By the first hour, all narrative drive has slackened into a limp thread. DC
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