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What's on - January 2021

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21 January 2021Visual Arts/Film

The Underwater Realm with My Camera

Discover the weird and the wonderful with Martyn Guess in his talk to Richmond & Twickenham Photographic Society as he demonstrates his passion to record vivid images of the world we live in both under the sea and above on land. Check out some of his fabulous images at www.martynguessphotography.com/home.html

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Richmond & Twickenham Photographic Society event
22 January 2021Visual Arts/Film

This Week’s Recommendation: The Fencer

The Fencer

Estonia/Finland 2015

98 mins, language Estonian, Russian

Directed by Klaus Haro

The Fencer was 792nd film screened by RFS on 15th November 2016. It was one of the four equal top ranked films of Season 56, with an approval rating of 95% from those attending.

In 1953, a man fleeing from the Soviet authorities who just happens to be a champion fencer (incognito) takes up the post of PE teacher in a remote rural poor village school and, despite hostility from the principal, teaches the children to fence sufficiently well to lead a team to victory in a fencing competition in Leningrad. As a wanted man, he goes to Russia at a considerable personal risk having been drafted into the Estonian contingent of the Nazi army.

The script is based on the life of Endels Nelis, who died in 1993, but the film’s plot takes liberties with his story, in that there is no evidence he was wanted by the KGB even though Estonians paid dearly for being dragooned into Hitler’s killing machine.

Short-listed for the 2016 Academy award for the Best Foreign Language Film, The Fencer is in many ways an old fashioned film: elegiac in its delivery, a predictable romance, haunting music to heighten the dramatic effect, long shots of landscape, quiet and understated - to quote The Times ‘a pleasure to watch‘.

Full film notes available in the Twickenham & Richmond Tribune - http://twickenhamtribune.com

Regrettably, the film does not currently appear on any streaming services, although discs are available from Amazon and other retailers.

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Richmond Film Society event
29 January 2021Visual Arts/Film

This Week’s Recommendation: Mother

Mother

South Korea, 2009

128 mins, language South Korean

Directed by Joon-ho Bong

Mother - an earlier work from last year’s Oscar winning Parasite director, Joon-ho Bong - was the 688th film screened by RFS on 21st February 2012. It was the fourth equal ranked film of Season 49, with an approval rating of 86% from those attending.

This strange, fascinating film begins with what seems like a straightforward premise. A young man of very limited intelligence is accused of murder. A clue with his name on it and eyewitness testimony tie him to the crime. His mother, a dynamo, plunges into action to prove her son innocent. So there we have it; he's either guilty or not and his mother will get to the bottom of things. Or not.

She marches tirelessly around the village, doing her own detective work. She questions people, badgers them, harasses police, comforts her son and hires a worthless lawyer. We learn everything she learns. It seems she's getting nowhere but the film is labyrinthine and deceptive and not in a way we anticipate.

Full film notes available in the Twickenham & Richmond Tribune - http://twickenhamtribune.com

Mother can be streamed from Amazon Prime and the discs are available from Amazon and other retailers.

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Richmond Film Society event