Sight&Sound - 04.2020

REVIEWS

April 2019 | Sight&Sound | 65

Reviewed by Nick Pinkerton
I will confess that, starting into Paul Duane’s
Best Before Death, I was soon restless and a little
annoyed. I was put off by what I took to be the
laboured eccentricity of the opening scene,
in which artist and former KLF member Bill
Drummond strips to slip on a fresh pair of jeans
and then hop into the fetid canal water beneath
the overpasses of Birmingham’s Spaghetti
Junction. Drummond’s subsequent quibbling
over the inherent falseness of documentary
form seemed distinctly undergraduate stuff,
and there were many occasions to wince in the
following scenes of Drummond in Calcutta,
carrying out the latest leg of his ongoing
conceptual art project. It all felt rather twee in
the face of so much poverty, rather tacky to be
talking about self-criticism when surrounded
by depredation, rather perverse for a man who
burned £1 million in cash to discuss finding
non-monetary ways to valuate art when
everywhere around material needs are so great.
But then, little by little, something funny
happens. Duane’s film follows Drummond on
two legs of a proposed start-and-stop 12-year
world tour, with each visit to a different city
comprised of a repetition of the same public
rituals, such as baking cakes and distributing
them to strangers along points on a circle drawn

on a map. Along with a bit of Birmingham and

Calcutta, we see Drummond in Lexington, a

small town in the centre of North Carolina, going

about his self-appointed rounds, documented

by photographer Tracey Moberly. And in the

course of watching him, observing the awkward

earnestness of his endeavour and seeing how

his public performance attracts attention

from passers-by, many of whom presumably

would not have much occasion to interact

with performance art in their lives, that initial

annoyance gave way to a more tender emotion.

What Duane manages in his film mirrors what

Drummond does in his project, which is about

generating spontaneous encounters, sometimes

uncomfortable ones, as when he sets up his kit

in Calcutta to perform his ritual of acting as a

shoeshine boy, only to realise that the locals in the

main don’t have shoes to shine. The situations,

many of them violating everyday decorum, are

designed to put people on their back foot, as

will happen when a stranger shows up on your

doorstep with a free cake, presenting you with

a quandary. Best Before Death is a free cake sort

of movie, an unusual and unexpected offering.

After an initial hesitation, I accepted it, and the

experience was an edifying one. The stranger,

like the artist, is so often treated as guilty until

proven innocent – but why should that be so?

Best Before Death
United Kingdom 2018
Director: Paul Duane
Certificate 12A 92m 2s

A documentary following Bill Drummond, artist and

former member of the KLF, on his ‘25 Paintings

World Tour’, which aims to visit 12 cities in 12

countries over the course of 12 years. We see

him in Calcutta and Lexington, North Carolina,

repeating the same performances: crossing town

beating a drum; baking cakes and distributing

them to strangers; building a bed; shining people’s

shoes; shrinking fresh denim in a symbolic body

of water; and commissioning local musicians to

record a track from his 1986 album ‘The Man’.

Finally, through a short play, Drummond expresses

his intention to no longer record the tour in

photographs but rather through stage dramas.

Produced by

Robert Gordon

Paul Duane

Cinematography

Kolkata:

Robbie Ryan

Lexington:

Patrick Jordan

Editor

Tony Cranstoun

Sound

Kevin Pinto

Michael Hunkele

©Screenworks

Production

Companies

Screenworks presents

Fís Éireann/Screen

Ireland, Media

Ranch, Rook Films

in association

with Scottish

Documentary

Institute, BBC

Made possible in part

with the sponsorship

of the Southern

Documentary Fund

Executive Producers

John Caulkins

for Rook Films:

Andy Starke

Ben Wheatley

for Screen Ireland/

Fís Éireann:

Celine Haddad

for Scottish

Documentary

Institute:

Finlay Pretsell

for BBC:

Tony Nellany

In Colour

[1.78:1]

Part-subtitled

Distributor

Anti-Worlds Releasing

Bed manners: Bill Drummond

Credits and Synopsis

Reviewed by Christina Newland

The particular brand of girl power generally

expressed by Marvel and DC movies is anodyne,

to say the least. As with the ‘girl gang’ moment of

the final battle in last year’s Avengers: Endgame,

seeing the women crack skulls and femurs along

with the lads has been the main through-line for

the female characters of superhero franchises.

Birds of Prey follows similar lines, though at least

the anarchic crew of broads here are more fun

to watch than their bland counterparts. Margot

Robbie, reprising her role from 2016’s Suicide Squad

as the flamboyantly accessorised and psychopathic

Harley Quinn, is the film’s most compelling

part, with a lippy, audacious girlishness and a

gnat’s attention span. Following a breakup with

the Joker, Harley soon finds that the whole of

Gotham’s underworld has a grudge against her.

Setting out to stand on her own two stilettoed

feet, she ends up drawn into a showdown for a

priceless diamond with a child pickpocket and

a misogynistic nightclub owner played with

maximum ham by Ewan McGregor. A tough

NYPD officer (Rosie Perez), a songstress who has

a side job as a heavy (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) and

a mysterious female assassin (Mary Elizabeth

Winstead) all join in the bone-crunching. One

extended sequence in a rundown Scooby-Doo-

style funhouse is visually inventive, especially as

the girls hop over giant clown tongues and dart

between endless loops of lights and mirrors.

Ultimately, the plot is as messy as its

central character, trotting around with one

shoe and a bacon sandwich in hand, but it’s

also a whole bunch of glittery, satisfying

fun – especially the unkempt, cheerful,

chaotic energy of Harley Quinn.

Birds of Prey

(And the Fantabulous Emancipation

of One Harley Quinn)

USA 2019, Director: Cathy Yan, Certificate 15 108m 46s

Harley Quinn has just broken up with the Joker,

leaving her without the protection she received as the

powerful villain’s girlfriend. Psychopathic nightclub

owner Roman forcefully enlists her to obtain a

priceless diamond from the stomach of Cassandra,

the child pickpocket who’s swallowed it. Police

officer Renee Montoya sets out to protect Cassandra,

while Roman’s employee Black Canary is sent to

snatch her. A showdown ensues, with all the women

banding together against Roman’s mercenaries.

Cassandra and Harley kill Roman with a grenade.

Produced by

Margot Robbie

Bryan Unkeless

Sue Kroll

Written by

Christina Hodson

Based on characters

from DC

Harley Quinn

created by Paul

Dini, Bruce Timm

Director of

Photography

Matthew Libatique

Edited by

Jay Cassidy

Evan Schiff

Production

Designer

K.K. Barrett

Music by/Score

Produced by

Daniel Pemberton

Production

Sound Mixer

Steve Morrow

Costume Designer

Erin Benach

©Warner Bros.

Entertainment Inc.

Production

Companies

A Warner

Bros. Pictures

presentation

A LuckyChap

Entertainment,

Clubhouse

Pictures, Kroll &

Co. Entertainment

production

Executive

Producers

Walter Hamada

Galen Vaisman

Geoff Johns

Hans Ritter

David Ayer

Cast

Margot Robbie

Harley Quinn

Mary Elizabeth

Winstead

Helena Bertinelli,

‘Huntress’

Jurnee

Smollett-Bell

Dinah Lance,

‘Black Canary’

Rosie Perez

Renee Montoya

Chris Messina

Victor Zsasz

Ewan McGregor

Roman Sionis

Ella Jay Basco

Cassandra

Cain, ‘Cass’

Dolby Atmos

In Colour

[2.35:1]

Distributor

Warner Bros.

Pictures

International (UK)

Additional

publicity title:

Harley Quinn:

Birds of Prey

Credits and Synopsis