5 things to watch this weekend – 14 to 16 April
Skullduggery infiltrates student life at a Cairo university, while island castaways face-off against super-sized beasts.
Cairo Conspiracy (aka Boy from Heaven, 2022)
Where’s it on? Cinemas nationwide
With this week’s tantalising announcement of the Cannes festival lineup, last year’s bounty can still be found trickling into UK cinemas. From the 2022 competition comes this conspiracy thriller set within a venerable Islamic university in the Egyptian capital. Like Tom Cruise in The Firm (1993), fisherman’s son Adam’s (Tawfeek Barhom) initial awe at his prestigious new surroundings gives way to paranoia, as he becomes a pawn in the government’s clandestine efforts to intervene in the election of the institute’s new imam. Swedish-Egyptian director Tarik Saleh’s glossy cinematic pageturner brings faith, politics, tradition and fundamentalism into an engrossing mix.
One Fine Morning (2022)
Where’s it on? Cinemas nationwide
Another Cannes ’22 alumnus, One Fine Morning is the new film from French filmmaker Mia Hansen-Løve. Léa Seydoux stars as the midlife Parisian grappling with finding a care home for her beloved academic father (Éric Rohmer regular Pascal Greggory) – who has developed a neurodegenerative disease – while also embarking upon an affair with a married man (Melvil Poupaud). Each of Hansen-Løve’s films tend to muse on the passage of time, and this one takes place across a year’s worth of changing seasons, tracing the emotional ebb and flow of Sandra’s life with all of the director’s customary warmth and delicacy.
Frankenstein: The True Story (1973)
Where’s it on? Blu-ray
This US/UK TV film of Mary Shelley’s novel boasts a script co-written by Christopher Isherwood, no less, and a cast bursting at the seams with familiar faces, including James Mason, David McCallum, Jane Seymour, Ralph Richardson, Agnes Moorehead, John Gielgud and Tom Baker. Canadian actor Michael Sarrazin (They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, 1969) plays the Creature, who unusually starts off rather a beautiful creation before slowly rotting in front of our eyes over the three-hour runtime. It’s the Frankenstein story played as epic period drama rather than for chills alone – a welcome addition to Blu-ray this week.
The Plains (2022)
Where’s it on? Mubi
A road movie with a difference, David Easteal’s remarkable first feature tracks a Melbourne legal worker’s daily drive home through rush hour. Filmed from a fixed position in the back seat, this oddly compelling docudrama is a study of a man in the downtime between work and home life. Over three hours, and many same-but-slightly-different journeys, we get to know the driver through his phone chats with his wife and mum, and through his growing rapport with the colleague to whom he occasionally gives a lift. By the end, a film about routine and repetition has evolved into something unexpectedly profound and moving.
Mysterious Island (1961)
Where’s it on? Film4, Sunday, 11am
Among a cycle of delicious 1950s and 60s Jules Verne adaptations, this Charles H. Schneer production offers a dramatic Bernard Herrmann score and a host of stop-motion beasties courtesy of Ray Harryhausen. The American-civil-war-era story – based on Verne’s 1874 novel of the same name – sees an air-balloon’s worth of escaped Union prisoners becoming marooned on an especially biodiverse island in the South Seas. The castaways must tangle with oversized bees and crabs, a prehistoric bird and a humongous cephalopod, before encountering Herbert Lom as the enigmatic Captain Nemo. Marshalling the mayhem is American director Cy Endfield, a film away from Zulu (1964).
