Sexy Durga
Dir: Sanal Kumar Sasidharan
With: Rajshri Deshpande, Kannan Nayar
Opening with an reportage-style sequence following preparations for an Indian religious ceremony which include applying hooks to the skin so participants can be dangled from a lorry, Sanal Kumar Sasidharan's taught film is set over the course of one long night and, if nothing else, will put you off hitch-hiking for life. Unfortunately for his two leads, the titular Durga (Deshpande) and her boyfriend Kabeer (Nayar), hitch-hiking to a railway station in Kerala at midnight is the only way they can elope. But when they're picked up by two young strangers in a gaudily decorated minivan listening to Indian death metal, they realise their parents' anger is the least of their worries.
Sasidharan worked with no script and little in the way of story, so it's all improvised. At the heart of his extraordinary film is Durga's experience. Crammed into the back of the van she's leered at and referred to in explicit sexual terms, as Sasidharan pulls no punches in his laying bare of the attitudes to women still prevalent in parts of Indian society. But it's the director's image-making which is most remarkable, especially in a closing scene in which everyone dons horror masks and barrels along a desolate country road with the van lit up and shaking with that hellish-sounding music.
Tonight, Vue Omni (8.55pm)
Teenage Superstars
Dir: Grant McPhee
With: Alan McGee, Stephen McRobbie, Norman Blake, Thurston Moore
Runtime: 110mins
Grant McPhee's music documentary Big Gold Dream, a love letter to the Edinburgh bands of the late 1970s, was one of the hits of last year's Edinburgh International Film Festival. For his next trick, McPhee winds the clock on a few years and turns his attention to Glasgow. Quite properly, given that remit, it's essentially a hymn to Stephen McRobbie, aka Stephen Pastel, first out of the blocks with his band The Pastels and still one of the mainstays of the city's music scene – or, as Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore refers to him here, “the mayor” of Scotland's rock underground.
Aside from The Pastels, McPhee's primary focus is the bands which came out of Bellshill (BMX Bandits, The Soup Dragons and Teenage Fanclub), as well as The Vaselines, East Kilbride's The Jesus And Mary Chain and, of course, Primal Scream. There's no Bobby Gillespie, so instead Bellshill alumni Norman Blake, Duglas T Stewart and Sean Dickson to do most of the reminiscing, alongside McRobbie and the always entertaining Alan McGee. A real treat and, though a shade under two hours, it wouldn't feel overlong at twice the length.
July 1, Odeon (3.25pm)
Godspeed
Dir: Chung Mong-Hong
With: Na Dow, Leon Dai, Michael Hui
Runtime: 111mins
Part road movie, part stylish crime caper, part black comedy, this fourth feature from Taiwanese writer-director Chung Mong-Hong pairs docile drug courier Nadow (Na Dow) with taxi driver Old Xu (Michael Hui) for a heroin delivery run that should be routine but doesn't pan out like that when the men are caught up in a gangland hit.
Overlaid onto that is the story of Nadow's unnamed boss (Leon Dai), who we encounter in the film's opening scenes almost losing his life in Thailand, a story he recounts to business associate Brother Tou when they meet to talk shop and (in just one of several Tarantino-esque asides Mong-Hong throws into the script) discuss the pros and cons of leaving the plastic covers on sofas. Some episodes are shown in flashback as Mong-Hong drip-feeds information about his characters, tinkers with their chronologies and plants neat foreshadowing devices such as an underling being examined by a doctor after experiencing blackouts. But there's a straightforward enough ending in which revenge is meted out in typically baroque and macabre fashion, at one point using a crash helmet and a hacksaw. Hard-boiled but not po-faced, Godspeed treads a balanced line between action and art-house.
June 24, Vue Omni (1pm)
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here