Film Shapes

Upon Open Sky sees a trio of teenagers head north from Mexico City on a mission to find the trucker who caused the accident that killed the father of the two lads. Promising enough premise, unfortunately, this is a slight film, aiming for profundity. It opens with the build up to the accident, somewhere in the dusty Mexican bush, then the crash itself acts as a timeslip point to two years later. Fernando (Máximo Hollander) scours a car scrapyard, looking for something. His younger brother, Salvador (Theo Goldin), who was in the car when their father died, understandably mopes around the house, only rising to perv on their new step-sister, Paula (Federica Garcia) as she changes for bed.  When mum and new step-dad announce they're off to Spain for a holiday, Fernando makes plans of his own to find (and maybe kill) the trucker. So off they go to a town on the US border in search of him. Now, this film could have been much better, and I'm kind of at pains to work out why I didn...

This reality adjacent sci-fi thriller is a pretty timely look at one of the many possible uses of Artificial Intelligence - legal judgement. In the near future, somewhere in Galicia, Spain, a system called THENTE 1 is being used to assist judges in passing down their verdicts and sentences. It's only assist for now, as a referendum is coming to decide if the whole horse and cart should be put in the hands of AI.  There's some sense to the proposal - the AI system usually makes the same decisions as most judges, and much quicker too. This would clear the backlog of cases that can clog up the courts. But obviously they are dangers to removing the human angle. With the referendum days away, the head of THENTE, Alicia (Alba Galocha) is killed in a self-driving car accident, mere hours after she proposed a  postponement to the launch of the new THENTE 2. Fishy? You bet.  Meanwhile, judge Carmen (a fine performance from Verónica Echegui) is seconded to THENTE to analyse the new...

The year is 1830. A ship is on its way to New Zealand, the captain charged with delivering lay preacher, Thomas Munro (Guy Pearce) to Epworth, a British settlement on the fringes of M āori territory. Making landfall down the coast  to pick up some lumber, Munro comes across some trouble between two tribes. Long story short, he becomes the ward of a young woman, and off they sail to Epworth. Upon arrival, the snooty townsfolk don't take too kindly to Munro's 'inclusive' forbearance, but they have external issues to concern them as well. They are renting their land from the local tribal chief, Maianui (Antonio Te Maioha), whose daughter is the woman in Munro's care, Rangimai (Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne). As well as this, a hard-case chief, Akatarewa (Lawrence Makoare) - seen earlier meting out some rough justice to Rangimai's fella - has designs on Maianui's land. Tinderbox potential. Director (and co-writer) Lee Tamahori has a really eclectic showreel, from hi...

This was the film chosen to preview the Spanish Film Festival for 2024 and it's quite the heart-wrencher. Based on a true story, from a book by Francesc Escribano, it tells of Antonio Benaiges (Enric Auquer), an idealistic teacher from Catalonia, who takes up a position in the small town of Bañuelos de Bureba in 1935. This town is probably like many others of the time - conservative, religious and fearful of outsiders. It's also full of kids who haven't seen the sea, which brings us to the title. Discovering that his charges have no idea about the sea, Antonio promises to take them on a trip to the Catalan coast, and much of the film is about his attempts to get permission from their inflexible parents. The depressing backdrop to all this is the impending Spanish Civil War between the Republicans and the Nationalists. Antonio ruffles a whole pelican's worth of feathers, from the politically pragmatic mayor, Alcalde (Antonio Mora), to the Snape-ish priest, the suitably ...