5 things to watch this weekend – 21 to 23 April
Eco warriors assemble on an explosive mission, while a landmark US indie film debuts on Blu-ray.
How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2022)
Where’s it on? Cinemas nationwide
Daniel Goldhaber’s tense eco thriller sees a motley bunch of radical environmentalists from all over the US meet in west Texas to attempt to sabotage an oil pipeline. Based on the 2021 book of the same name by Andreas Malm, it unravels with multiple flashbacks as we see the crew come together, practice bomb-making and rehearse their dangerous plan, while also learning what has driven each individual to turn eco warrior. The plot is reminiscent of Kelly Reichardt’s more minimalist 2013 eco-terrorism drama Night Moves, but is driven forward with greater urgency by a throbbing synth score.
Pacifiction (2022)
Where’s it on? Cinemas nationwide and streaming on BFI Player
Benoît Magimel plays the perfectly named De Roller, the louche French government official swanning around the French Polynesian island of Tahiti in a white suit and flowery shirt in this beguiling tropical fantasia from Catalan director Albert Serra. Hitherto known for his slowed-down refractions of the stories of Don Quixote, Dracula and others, Serra’s references here seem to be Peter Bogdanovich’s Graham Greene-esque expat drama Saint Jack (1979) and the humid atmospherics of Michael Mann’s Miami Vice (2006). It’s a hazy, sun-damaged meditation on colonial decadence and entitlement, infused with paranoia and a sense of ungraspable threat.
Wanda (1970)
Where’s it on? Blu-ray
The one and only film directed by Barbara Loden, Wanda has had a long, slow climb into the canon but made the top 50 in the recent Sight and Sound poll. It stars Loden herself as the eponymous Wanda, an illiterate and down-on-her-luck mother whom we first meet wandering around the imposing slag heaps of Pennsylvania mining country. Losing custody of her kids in a divorce settlement, she’s set adrift but soon falls in with an itinerant rogue, who involves her in his bank robberies. What unfolds is like a noir couple-on-the-run film stripped of thrills and shadows: instead, Wanda’s plight has an austere, daylit, present-tense urgency. A masterpiece.
Moonlighting (1982)
Where’s it on? BFI Player
Our celebration of Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski continues this week, with two further films being added to BFI Player: his high-concept 2015 thriller 11 Minutes and this off-kilter drama from 1982 about a group of Polish builders working on a house renovation over a cold winter in west London. As with Skolimowski’s other UK-set features, Deep End (1970) and The Shout (1978), Moonlighting offers an almost otherworldly perspective, as the workers find themselves strangers in a strange land. Electrician Nowak (Jeremy Irons) is the only one who speaks the language, which enables him to conceal from his colleagues a military uprising back home; all so they can finish the job. Moonlighting was one of the earliest films made by Channel 4.
Sapphire (1959)
Where’s it on? Talking Pictures TV, Sunday, 10pm
Beginning with the discovery of a body on Hampstead Heath, this classic British ‘social problem’ drama uses a gripping murder mystery template to examine the issue of racism against West Indian immigrant communities in London. Yvonne Buckingham plays the tragic Sapphire, the pioneering British-Jamaican actor Earl Cameron is her brother, while Nigel Patrick and Michael Craig are the men from Scotland Yard leading the investigation. Basil Dearden’s film is not without its dated elements, but was bold for its time, winning that year’s BAFTA for best British film. There are plenty of familiar faces to spot among the bit parts too, including Barbara Steele, Desmond Llewelyn and Fenella Fielding.
