Meet Me in Montenegro
three stars
Dirs: Alex Holdridge, Linnea Saasen
With: Alex Holdridge, Linnea Saasen
Runtime: 90 minutes
EIGHT years ago, Alex Holdridge's indie hit, In Search of a Midnight Kiss, made the crossover to the mainstream, making him a name to watch. The tale on that occasion was of two strangers walking the streets of LA, shooting the breeze, and finding a connection in a cold world. Meet Me in Montenegro does not stray too far from that same basic premise, only this time the couple in question (played by Holdridge and his co-director Linnea Saasen) doing the walking and talking were once in love. The connections and similarities do not stop there. In playing a film director searching for that elusive second hit, Holdridge could also be said to be mining his own life for material. While one might have hoped for Holdridge to have ventured further from his comfort zone, Meet Me in Montenegro is a likeable enough romantic drama done with a good heart.
Tonight [friday], 20.55, Cineworld; tomorrow [sat], 18.00, Cineworld
Prophet's Prey
four stars
Dir: Amy Berg
Runtime: 90 minutes
AMY Berg's second film in this year's festival, after the crime drama Every Secret Thing, finds her on the more familiar ground of documentary. The director of the Oscar-nominated Deliver Us From Evil and West of Memphis here has the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and its leader, Warren Jeffs, front and centre of her camera lens, and what a disturbing story she has to tell. With so many American cults gone before, one might think there is little room to be shocked any more, but the tale of how one man could manipulate whole communities will haunt you long after watching Berg's insightful and gripping piece.
The First Film
three stars
Dir: David Nicholas Wilkinson
Runtime: 106 minutes
WHEN it comes to the inventors of moving pictures, few if any would dare to challenge the position of the Lumiere brothers or Edison. David Nicholas Wilkinson is a brave heart who would take up that challenge. In his fascinating documentary, Wilkinson argues that cinema can trace its origins to Leeds, where one Louis Le Prince invented a one lens camera, trained it on Leeds Bridge, among other places, and so produced, according to the blue plaque at the site, "probably the world's first moving pictures". Wilkinson's telling of the story can be workmanlike at times, as if he is making an episode of Who Do You Think You Are rather than a feature documentary, but there is no doubting his passion. It took him 30 years to raise the money to make this film, and in its own way it is as much a hymn to the love of movies as it is a tale of invention.
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