2 November 2018.
By Neptune
Do not miss Geneva’s own International Film Festival – GIFF – running from 2 to 10 November 2018. Click here for more information.
BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY **1/2
This is obviously a must for fans of the band Queen and its charismatic, strutting singer, Freddie Mercury. A detailed musical biopic, it reveals many things of which we were not aware as it follows the rise of the band, their great hits and tours around the world, their internal tensions and the demise of Mercury due to his wild lifestyle and his battle with Aids, which killed him at 45 in 1991.
But there is something missing, and it could be the gigantic presence of Mercury himself, who though raised in England was actually an Indian Parsi, born in Zanzibar as Farrokh Bulsara.
He’s especially missed, for Rami Malek who portrays him in the film, just does not measure up to the flamboyance of Freddie. Pity, for he was the heart of the whole thing.
LE GRAND BAL *** (vo French)
If you love dancing, people, a new experience and just going with the flow of music and camaraderie, this hypnotic documentary is for you. French director Laetitia Carton has captured the magic of this annual event in the middle of France, in a place called Gennetines, where some 2000 people gather for a week in mid-summer to literally ‘dance the nights away’.
It’s not disco, or Burning Man house and techno music, but the gentler vibes of folk tunes from around the world. People sleep in hammocks and tents, eat in communal canteens and attend dance classes during the day. Then from about nine in the evening till around three in the morning they dance under various tents to sounds that bring them together in a sort of joyous group therapy.
Carton has made the event feel both energetic and spiritual, and it will make you want to go there next summer…
By Neptune
Neptune Ravar Ingwersen reviews film extensively for publications in Switzerland. She views 4 to 8 films a week and her aim is to sort the wheat from the chaff for readers.
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