Spank's LFF Diary, Thursday 05/10/2023

Reviewed today: Bonus Track, Only The River Flows.

6.15pm: Only The River Flows [trailer]

It's been a few years since I last did this, so let's talk about The Seafood Fallacy again. It's a phenomenon I first observed back in 2004, when I went to see a film by Chinese director Zhu Wen called South Of The Clouds. The main point of interest for me was that I'd seen Zhu's previous movie Seafood three years earlier. South Of The Clouds turned out to be rather disappointing, which surprised me: so I went back and read my review of Seafood, only to discover that I didn't enjoy that one much either.

Ever since then, I've been wary of choosing films at the LFF purely on the basis of recognising the director's name. So when this year's programme announced the latest film by Shujun Wei, I made damn sure I did my research first. (I'm not saying that The Seafood Fallacy only applies to Chinese directors, by the way.) Wei's name was familiar from the 2020 online festival, where we saw his comedy Striding Into The Wind. At the time, I thought it had some good ideas, but it was overlong at 130 minutes. Only The River Flows is 101 minutes long. Two tickets, please.

Initially, it’s a standard looking police procedural. An old woman is killed, and detective Ma (Yilong Zhu) is on the case, operating out of his new police station in a disused cinema. Suspects are interrogated, blind alleys are gone up and down, secrets are uncovered, and eventually someone only ever referred to as 'the madman' is arrested. That should be the end of it, but Ma isn’t convinced. And when one of the suspects turns up murdered in the same way, it looks like he may be right.

Set in the mid 1990s (presumably because Hua Yu's source novel was too), the main concession to the time period is Wei's decision to shoot on 16mm film, which really pays off: the lighting, colour and use of grain triggers off something in your cinematic lizard brain that makes it feel just right. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the plotting. It's at its most interesting in the middle, as it uneasily transitions from a murdered granny flick into something more complex, reaching its peak in a scene where all the clues are juggled in front of your face while the film more or less laughs at you for trying to keep up. After that, it needs some sort of grand gesture to tie everything together: choosing not to do that is undoubtedly brave, but it makes for an unsatisfying ending. Albeit one with a fascinating final shot.

Still, if Wei is a director that the LFF is choosing to hitch its wagon to - his last three films have all played here - then I’d still be interested in whatever he does next. And I’m not the only one: it’s fascinating after the screening to see he's set up a table on the street outside the Vue cinema, and is signing autographs for a small cluster of Chinese fans. No, I don't think we can completely Seafood him just yet.

8.45pm: Bonus Track [clip] 

Over the last few years, the London Film Festival trailers have stuck to a standard, rather cliched format – clips from as many films as they can cram into one minute, structured around any lines of dialogue that they can pretend are referring to the festival itself. This year’s trailer shows remarkable restraint in that it only has one line of dialogue in it: a young man sitting at a school desk saying "it's unique... and all the best things are".

As we enter the Vue for what turns out to be the world premiere of Bonus Track, there's a serious buzz in the air. Lots of people dressed to the nines, plenty of champagne flying around, recognisable people like current Taskmaster contestant Susan Wokoma being interviewed in the foyer. As the last few people take their seats, I notice that one of them is that kid with that line in that trailer. The trailer plays, and when Samuel Small (for it is he) says the line, the entire room erupts into cheering and applause. I've never seen the LFF trailer get that sort of response, and I start to wonder if The BBG and I are the only people in the room who haven’t worked on this film.

Bonus Track is a coming of age story, alarmingly being referred to as a period piece because it’s set in 2006. George (Joe Anders) is a socially awkward kid in his final year at school, either hated or ignored by everyone in his class (and many of the teachers). His one passion is for making music, but if anything that makes him even more hated and ignored. That all changes when new boy Max (Samuel Small) joins the class, and becomes the first person to take an interest in what George is doing. The feeling's mutual for George, but for different reasons.

At one point George grimaces at his teacher's insistence that ‘music is math’, but one of the things that makes Bonus Track work so well is its precise mathematical structure: it uses the format of Desert Island Discs to create the ultimate mixtape soundtrack out of a solid set of mid-2000s bangers. The same level of precision is applied to the developing love story, with George’s awakening played with terrific subtlety and timing. Max turns out to complement him perfectly, bursting with self-confidence but with the occasional crack of doubt coming through.

Director Julia Jackman surrounds their two excellent performances with a host of familar names in the adult roles (including Susan Wokoma as that one nice teacher) and a whole menagerie of supporting kids, whose noisy enthusiasm makes this screening such enormous fun. Bonus Track is really just a piece of romcom fluff coasting on its charm, but it's got enough charm to make an entire reptile house worth of snakes pop their heads up.