David R. Walker

Archive for October 22nd, 2021

Save Sandra

Directors: Jan Verheven & Lien Willaert

Cast: Sven de Ridder, Darya Gantura, Rosalie Charlies, Charles Aitken, Kaisa Hammerlund, Christopher Dane

Running Time: 100 minutes

This film is in Flemish, French, Dutch and English with English Subtitles

Despite this film being a true story, the co-directors of this interesting Belgian film Save Sandra Jan Verheven and Lien Willaert have created quite a schizophrenic narrative.

Is this film about Palliative Care? Is this film about the media? Is this film about the evil multinational drug companies that create orphan drugs to treat rare diseases?

Aspects of Save Sandra are beautifully told, centering on the heartbreaking plight of the parents of six year old girl Sandra who receive the shocking diagnosis that their only daughter has a rare muscular degenerative disease. The parents are a young couple in Belgium, William and Olga Massart played by Belgian actors Sven de Ridder and Darya Gantura and Sandra is played by Rosalie Charles.

Olga is devastated that her daughter could possibly die within a year, while her energetic husband William decides to investigate every drug available to arrest Sandra’s degenerative disease coming across a rare drug which has not been properly patented in Belgium.

William and Olga travel to Copenhagen and then to Rotterdam to plead with the drug company to allow Sandra to qualify for this orphan drug, however the problem lies in the prohibitive cost per dose in Euro’s, which is money the young couple do not have.

To complicate matters further, the original drug company gets bought out by a massive multinational company based in Basingstoke in the United Kingdom. So the film’s action moves from Belgium to the British countryside and the white cliffs of Dover.

William Massart starts raising funds for Sandra’s treatment through various events in Belgium soon attracting media attention and even that of the Belgian Princess. Unfortunately, the more awareness he creates about his daughter, the worse Sandra gets, quickly becoming confined to a wheel chair.

The best parts of the film are the bed side stories that William, a devoted father tells Sandra covering up her muscular disease in fantasy and fairytales about princesses and mermaids, wonderfully illustrated through animation.

Save Sandra is worth seeing although at times the subject matter is heavy going especially regarding the entire story being about a sick child that isn’t going to recover. Unfortunately with two directors, the film lacks a unifying version and becomes a much lesser version of similar films like 1992’s Lorenzo’s Oil or the Oscar winning The Constant Gardener in 2005, which expertly tackled the lack of ethics associated with big multinational drug companies.

Based on a true story, Save Sandra is an interesting Belgian film but it is not brilliant. It gets a film rating of 7 out of 10.

Robust

Director: Constance Meyer

Cast: Gerard Depardieu, Deborah Lukumena, Lucas Mortier

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

This film is in French with English subtitles

Screened virtually at the 2021 European Film Festival

Oscar nominee for Cyrano de Bergerac Gerard Depardieu returned to the 2021 Cannes Film Festival with a self-reflexive film entitled Robust also starring an amazing Deborah Lukumena as Aissa a trained wrestler who takes on the rather strange job of protecting a famous actor past his prime Georges.

Georges is wonderfully played by the bad boy of French cinema Gerard Depardieu (The Life of Pi, The Secret Agent, La Vie en Rose), a character that is larger than life and is essentially a spoilt and needy actor who constantly requires attention and someone to assuage his prickly ego.

A fretful hypochondriac, Georges is preparing for a new role in a 19^th century period film in which he is required to play a French land owner who is timid, vanquished and lost. And he must learn fencing.

Yet like all aging film stars, Georges who lives in a plush apartment in Paris is constantly misbehaving until he gets assigned a new protector the aspiring female wrestler Aissa who takes none of his nonsense or his masculine foibles.

Aissa is trying to make a life for herself in Paris as she casually dates her co-worker the vacuous Eddy played by Lucas Mortier who is really using Aissa for sex.

Directed by Constance Meyer, Robust is essentially a slow moving study of two completely opposite characters who find an unlikely connection and form a bond. Aissa is not bothered by Georges supposed fame, while Georges feels secure knowing that Aissa is available even when he frequently disappears or goes off the rails.

Robust is not a dazzling film, but a wonderful character study of two fascinating people at the opposite end of their lives. Aissa is just starting out as a body guard and protector while Georges is constantly fretting over his fading stardom, even though he takes his wealth and privilege for granted, falling off motorbikes and getting inebriated.

The best scene in the film is when Georges gate crashes Aissa and Eddy’s romantic dinner at a Chinese restaurant in the 20^th arrondisement of Paris and the young Eddy does not take to the cantankerous actor who is oblivious to how he burdens other people with his demands.

Robust gets a film rating of 7 out of 10 and is an enjoyable and light hearted French film and viewers will relish watching the delightful Depardieu on the screen again.

After Love

Director: Aleem Khan

Cast: Joanna Scanlan, Nathalie Richard, Talid Ariss, Nasser Memarzia

This film is in English, French and Urdu with subtitles

Screened virtually at the 2021 European Film Festival

British Pakistani film director Aleem Khan makes his impressive feature length debut with his thought provoking film After Love starring the amazing British actress Joanna Scanlan (Tulip Fever, Notes on a Scandal, Testament of Youth) and French actress Nathalie Richard who share a unique bond, which is complicated, maternal and at times malicious.

After Love shot mainly in Dover and in Calais, centres on a British woman who converted to Islam to marry her adoring Pakistani husband Ahmed briefly played by Nasser Memarzia.

Unfortunately, Ahmed dies of a sudden heart attack leaving his wife Mary beautifully portrayed by Joanna Scanlan who inhabits every frame of the screen, is left adrift.

Mary soon discovers that her late husband had a lover living in Calais, France just 21 miles away across the English Channel. Summoning all the courage in the world, Mary makes the journey to Calais to meet her late husband’s lover, a vivacious blond named Genevieve wonderfully played by Nathalie Richard who is not only coping with being a single mother but is in the process of moving to a bigger home in Calais.

Genevieve has to contend with Ahmed’s biological son Solomon played by Talid Ariss who constantly resents his mother and is harbouring sexual secrets of his own, a teenager bristling with attitude and deceit as he constantly wonders where his wayward father is.

In a careful plot twist, Genevieve mistakes Mary as an agency housekeeper coming to help her tidy up and move home. Mary knowingly insinuates herself into the complex lives of Genevieve and her obstreperous teenage son, while keeping her real identity private until all the secrets and lies are revealed in one final family dinner.

Joanna Scanlan is amazing in her first major role as the protagonist playing a white British Muslim woman who has to not only deal with her late husband’s death but the wider implications of discovering that he had a mistress and son across the Channel.

After Love is a careful study of the complex lives people live without becoming preachy or didactic, held together by a superbly understated performance by Scanlan who holds the entire film together even as her character’s world is both figuratively and literally changing around her. Joanna Scanlan deserves an Oscar nomination for this role. She is absolutely superb.

After Love debuted at the Cannes and Thessalonki Film festival in 2020 and now viewers can catch this fascinating film at the 2021 European film Festival online.

It’s highly recommended viewing and gets a film rating of 7.5 out of 10.