Lies We Tell review: "Fasten your Seat-Belts"

Review by Philip Bergson

Fasten your seat-belts for a gripping, intriguing, eye-opening, startling, emotionally-disturbing and even shocking expose of the underbelly of a northern British metropolis—in one of the most impressive ,assured and utterly independent debut feature I have had the pleasure of seeing in ages. Credibly filmed in and around Bradford, the world’s first UNESCO “City of Film”, centre of the global woollen industry and in its Edwardian heydays one of the more prosperous cities in the British Isles, where ‘twas said, there were more Rolls-Royces to be seen than on the streets of London, and in the 1930s boasted the largest cinema in the British Empire where in the Swinging Sixties live concerts featured performers with odd and not-yet-well-known names like The Beatles and the Rolling Stones who were not even top of their bills then. Bradford was the home of composer Delius,

of J.B.Priestley, one of the most popular English novelists and broadcasters, and more recently, one of the world's most recognised- and recognisable-artists David Hockney, and a pioneering backdrop and lively location for breakthrough British films such as Room at the Top and Billy Lair. A city and Yorkshire region welcoming to immigrants fleeing pogroms, Hitler, and the clutches of Communism, and after an influx of refugees from the collapse of the British Empire, a scene more recently of the Burning of Salman Rushdie’s “blasphemous” novel- and the worst “race riots” in living memory. The city where maverick politician George Galloway succeeded in being re elected to Parliament (for a single term)- and the Yorkshire Ripper used to live. A city now regenerating itself with its multicultural and multi-religious community. Lies We Tell, while not at all sensationalist in style, is a timely expose of the clashes of such cultures, and is clearly inspired by deeply-felt and tragic family and personal stories.

From the opening sequences with Harvey Keitel as a philandering business man, cavorting in a love-nest with a dusky beauty, his timid-seeming driver played by the excellent Gabriel Byrne, the clever screenplay spins a spidery web of tangling deceits, and we only bit by bit come to learn more about the characters and how the past can tyrannise the present, and the religious zeal-and ideals- are quite out of place when transplanted to a secular and very alien land. There are extensive flashbacks, sidelines, revelations and always the uncovering of the veil of another lie, social, sexual, historic, pecuniary, venial, understandable but unforgivable as the dictates of Islam clash with the practices and preferences of the West.

Arranged marriages, abstinence from alcohol, yet indulgence in narcotics in the playgrounds of the young, the film’s fine cinematographer Santosh Sivan captures perfectly the Victorian splendours of the city, and its seedier sides---here is a nightclub sequence that Could rival Fellini-Satyiricon- and the rural splendours of the adjacent countryside (This is Wuthering Heights’ s own county never mind God’s, do not forget!).

But what most impresses is the uniformly excellent cast and the utterly credible dialogues they are given and the flair and conviction with which they make their journey…..the driver is ultimately driven to take a stand, and the oppressed daughters make their own pleas for recognition and dignity….and yet the ancient curses take their toll.

In the central, pivotal role of the daughter who initially seems to be just the plaything of the plutocrat Australian actress Sibylla Dean displays a rare beauty on screen reminiscent of the

Younger Audrey Hepburn (a graduate of the popular soap opera Home and Away in her homeland) as she swaps the Muslim mufti from her family to study and earn in Western garb. As her kissing cousin another soap star (from the BBC’s own hit series Eastenders) the Anglo-Bangladeshi actor Jan Uddin has genuine charisma and evil strength on screen and in his role as an even seedier “businessman”. It is good to see the ever-likeable Mark Addy (a local lad, remembered from The Full Monty) as cheery brother-in-law to the divorced driver(the excellent Gina McKee makes a brief appearance as Gabriel Byrne’s ex as the drama-spring winds to its tightest) and the sharp-eyed will spot punk legend Toyah Willcox amongs the western cast, and a very strong group of Asian performers bring to life the traditionalist as well as divided post-Imperial Bradfordians.

As if that were not enough to recommend this film, the music by Polish maestro Zbigniew Preisner handsomely complements Mitu Misra’s pitch-perfect direction. To give any details of the plot would spoil the way the film tears away such various veils in such a skilled and timely fashion.

PHILLIP BERGSON

Film Critic, UK, member of Fipresci

Winner of the Student Journalist of the Year competition in the UK weekly New Statesman, as a Classics Scholar Phillip Bergson then founded the Oxford Film Festival and, on graduating, was selected by "The Sunday Times" as a 'New Critic' and in the same week began broadcasting on film for many BBC Radio programmes. A contributor to the "Times Literary Supplement", "TES", "Screen International", "Film Bulletin", "Film a Doba" inter alia, he also worked for the "European Script Fund", has scripted shorts and features (that have been produced and released) and, fluent in eight-and-a-half languages, currently programmes and advises several international film festivals. At the National Media Museum in his native Yorkshire, he created the "Eurovisions" project, to promote classic and contemporary European cinema.

As a Jury Member

· in 57^th Berlinale 2007

· in 7^th Bratislava International Film Festival 2005

· in 5^th Lecce Festival of European Cinema 2004

· in 51^st Berlinale - Berlin International Film Festival 2001

· in 54^th Locarno International Film Festival 2001

· in 20^th Haifa International Film Festival 2004

· in 34^th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 1999

· in 16^th Istanbul International Film Festival 1997

· in 9^th Festroia International Film Festival 1993

· in 43^rd International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film 2000

· in 48^th International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg 1999