Wham! 10 Days in China (U)
Directed by Mike Christie
⭑⭑⭑⭑☆

THIS looks like a simple film. Wham! are the first Western band to go to China. They play two concerts and the stunt gets them a global reputation and an arena tour in the US. Yawn… Except there is much more going on here than meets the eye.

Queen wanted to be the first to play China, but their tour was sabotaged by Wham!’s unscrupulous manager, a fact that isn’t mentioned.

This leads instead to the son of a Cypriot communist and former YCL member, George Michael (the fascinating, immature centre of the film), confessing to being disillusioned by his first contact with a communist country. During the Beijing gig at the vast Workers’ Gymnasium, a man is arrested for dancing and the 15,000-strong audience is bizarrely inhibited in their reaction. Michael was so nervous that — hilariously — he launches into Wake Me Up Before You Go Go at double speed.

The tour footage (they are crowded by a gang of Western papparazzi) is interspersed with extraordinarily interesting observation of the population of Beijing in 1985, and this is because the then director Lindsay Anderson (If, O Lucky Man, Britannia Hospital) wanted to make a different film about the negative cultural impact of Deng Xiao Ping’s policy of “opening up,” a now lost film called If You Were There. George Michael himself rejected it, it seems.

Which throws into high relief a third unexplored thread, namely: both Anderson and Michael were closeted gay men at the time. In a telling scene, after the second successful concert, Anderson makes to congratulate Michael who pointedly ignores him. It’s a painful moment of calculated disrespect.

Although outwardly a feel-good movie (Careless Whisper in Guangzhou is particularly good) this apparently commercial exercise cannot conceal the political, personal and artistic tensions and conflicts that inevitably accompanied the whole opportunistic exercise.

The fact that a backing trumpeter stabbed himself on a plane is only the most dramatic indicator of the more interesting stories that might have been explored, that lie behind the banal mask of the wannabe superstar.

This film is a tease, a shameful evasion, and all the more fascinating for it.
AR
In cinemas now.

Lesvia (15)
Directed by Tzeli Hadjidmitriou
⭑⭑⭑☆☆

THE Greek island of Lesbos was a staple of countercultural lore of the 1970s. The birthplace of Sappho — ancient Greek poet of lesbian love — was a utopia where female travellers could love each other naked and free.

With her first full-length feature, director Tzeli Hadjidmitriou has made a very personal record of the 40 years of lesbian engagement with her island and the small town of Eresos. Amid scenes of beaches alongside the bluest of lapping seas, naked female bodies, homemade video clips and holiday snaps, a collage of voices tells this rise and fall story. Not so much a paradise lost as one commodified.

A black volcanic island where nature dominates is beautifully captured by Hadjidmitriou. “You come across rocky mountains and then you land amongst women,” one interviewee says. In the ’70s visitors stayed on the beach in tents and self-made bamboo shelters. The local society, agricultural workers, peasants, lived a very separate, traditional life.

The success of this lesbian freedom project coupled with economic prosperity generated increased numbers of women visiting, partying hard, living uninhibited gay lives. Cultural clashes broke out, spaces were contested. This is related through many different views and testimonies across the film.

Greece’s 2009 debt crisis brought down businesses, among them the women-only hostelries struck up on the little square of Eresos. A new era followed and continues, more muted, yet still Lesbos provides a safe haven for lesbian communities among its considerable tourist traffic. 

“We went from pervert to customer,” one woman says. “If I pay I am able to be what I am,” another adds. The island hosts lesbians holidaying, from Met police-officer groups to Gulf state nurses seeking a safe environment for their sexuality.

Fragments of Sappho’s words representing 3,000 years of female desire are traced through this bittersweet film.
FoC
Available on digital platforms August 3.

Di’Anno: Iron Maiden’s Lost Singer (15)
Directed by Wes Orshoski
⭑⭑☆☆☆

THIS film following the later years of metal legend Paul Di’Anno will be a slog to anyone other than Iron Maiden’s most hardcore of fans.

Clearly there are still loads of those about, as metal’s notoriously kind, supportive, and wildly international fanbase are forever in the background of this warts ’n’ all, fly-on-the-wall documentary, doing what they can to help get Di’Anno back on his feet both metaphorically and literally.

He’s been in a wheelchair for years and desperately needs surgery or his legs will be amputated, and heads to Croatia (again, thanks to a fan) to try and get the thing done.

Here, he picks up a new fiancee, loses said new fiancee, and is pretty horrible to most of the people around him — and one fears he was even ruder in the footage left on the cutting room floor.

Iron Maiden’s singer for their first two albums, Di’Anno’s vocals are deeper and richer than his operatic replacement, Bruce Dickinson. But drink, drugs and picking fights with random audience members show why the fame-hungry band dispensed of his services. 40 years on, a brief reunion in the bowels of a Zagreb arena is too banal even for bathos.

There’s a more interesting film lurking in here, but for this you need to hear more from Di’Anno’s handlers, bookers, and assorted backing bands. Instead, the film hangs on its subject’s every utterance and complaint, none of which are especially memorable. 

He is at least honest, and up front about his mental and physical struggles. But just because something is a tough watch doesn’t necessarily mean it’s worth watching, as this failed hagiography — weirdly bookended with fake social media reaction videos — proves most disappointingly.
JW
In select cinemas now.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day (12A)
Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton
⭑⭑⭑⭑☆

FRESH from the success of The Odyssey, Tom Holland returns as Spider-Man for the seventh time in a much darker and emotionally grounded film which explores loss and personal transformation but is still wonderfully entertaining. 

It is back to grassroots, fighting local crime for Peter Parker as Spidey. He is totally alone as nobody remembers him due to Dr Strange’s spell from the previous film. 

He is at his lowest ebb watching his girlfriend MJ (Zendaya, The Odyssey) and his BFF Ned (Jacob Batalon) move on with their lives without him, which triggers a dangerous physical change and mutation. Plus he is faced with a powerful new enemy who can inhabit anyone. 

Shang-Chi director Destin Daniel Cretton seamlessly combines gut-punching emotional scenes with thrilling action-packed sequences peppered with wise-cracking humour. 

Holland, the best Spider-Man to date, brings us an older, more resigned but terribly human crime fighter while his wife Zendaya is electrifying as MJ. 

There are some surprising cameos and a phenomenal reveal which will leave audiences gasping. 

Definitely swing by your neighbourhood cinema and see this. 
MD
In cinemas now.

The Fires (15)
Directed by Ugla Hauksdottir
⭑⭑⭑☆☆

THIS slow-burning Icelandic survival thriller starts on a simmer but quickly comes to the boil as it demonstrates how brutal and unforgiving Mother Nature can be. 

The film follows volcanologist Anna (Vigdis Hrefna Palsdottir) as she tries to save her family and the citizens of Iceland’s most populated region from volcanic armageddon. She battles against her male peers and the local tourist board who, for political and financial reasons, don’t want to believe her calculated theory that the volcanoes which have been lying dormant for years are about to erupt. 

At the same time her marriage is set to implode as she embarks on an affair with a freelance photographer (Pilou Asbaek). 

This is an impressive directorial debut feature by co-writer director Ugla Hauksdottir. Featuring footage of actual volcanic eruptions in Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula, it puts you in the heart-racing thick of the action. However, the romantic element was an unnecessary and pointless distraction. 
MD
Available on digital platforms now.