5 things to watch this bank holiday weekend – 5 to 8 May
A tailor hides his desire away, while a sister plots a slow poisoning.
Return to Seoul (2022)
Where’s it on? Cinemas nationwide
A restless, charismatic French-Korean woman seeks to reconnect with her birth parents in this unexpectedly complex and absorbing drama from French-Cambodian director Davy Chou. Park Ji-min plays the confident French-naturalised twentysomething on a trip to Seoul who attempts to track down the divorcés who gave her up for adoption as a child. Following her progress over nine years, Chou’s plaintive drama paints a portrait of a woman grappling to define her own sense of belonging, while also asking profound questions about the forces that shape a person’s identity. In doing so, it neatly swerves the sentimental clichés of many adoption narratives.
The Hustler (1961)
Where’s it on? Talking Pictures TV, Saturday, 11.40pm
Paul Newman got one of his finest roles playing pool shark ‘Fast Eddie’ Felson, the small-time hustler who, with no small amount of bravado, challenges renowned champ Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason). Robert Rossen’s classic sports drama follows Felson and his gambling buddy Bert Gordon (George C. Scott) from one smoky pool bar to the next, interspersing engrossing action on the billiard cloth with terrific study of a character’s cocksure compulsion to win. The atmospheric black-and-white cinematography is by Eugen Schüfftan, whose career stretched back to doing effects work for Fritz Lang in the 1920s. Martin Scorsese made a belated sequel in 1986, uniting Newman with Tom Cruise for The Color of Money.
Carmen Jones (1954)
Where’s it on? BBC2, Sunday, 2.40pm
Showing in tribute to Harry Belafonte, who died in April, Otto Preminger’s slinky musical classic follows a 1943 Broadway show in transposing Bizet’s opera Carmen to the American south during World War II. Well ahead of its time for Hollywood in featuring an all-Black cast, the film sees Belafonte’s handsome GI driving Dorothy Dandridge’s arrested factory worker through North Carolina en route to the authorities. Preminger’s ground-breaker combines Bizet’s music and Oscar Hammerstein’s lyrics with early use of the widescreen CinemaScope format. Dandridge’s performance of ‘Dat’s Love’ (to the tune of ‘Habanera’) in a roadside canteen makes it unmissable.
The Blue Caftan (2022)
Where’s it on? Cinemas nationwide and online on BFI Player
Part of a wave of films from North Africa coming to UK cinemas this spring, including Harka (which is also out this week) and Under the Fig Trees, Maryam Touzani’s The Blue Caftan is a delicate tale of forbidden love set within the medina of Salé, Morocco. Halim (Saleh Bakri) is the gentle maalem (tailor). Happily married to his wife Mina (Lubna Azabal), who manages their workshop, he lives a secret double life cruising Salé’s gay community, indulging a desire that’s still illegal in Morocco. The story complicates when the pair take on a new apprentice, Youssef (Ayoub Missioui), a handsome stranger who returns Halim’s shy affections.
Morgiana (1972)
Where’s it on? Blu-ray
Named by Peter Strickland as the major influence on The Duke of Burgundy (2014), the pick of this week’s releases on disc is this gothic tale of sisterly jealousy, poisoning and blackmail from Slovak director Juraj Herz (The Cremator, 1969). Like an Eastern European spin on What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), the film sees a woman beginning to plot her sister’s murder after the latter inherits the bulk of their father’s estate. Both sisters are played by the same actor, Iva Janžurová: one as a blonde innocent, the other in heavy, devilish black mascara. Off-kilter camerawork and a panicky score contribute to a heightened air of hysteria.
