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Bonus Features: London Road (2015)

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Our current Movie of the Month, the 2015 true-crime musical London Road, is a grim, misanthropic work adapted word-for-word from transcripts of suburban English locals reacting to the 2006 serial murders of prostitutes in their neighborhood. It’s an impressively odd, daring film considering that it looks like the Dramatic Reenactments portions of an unaired Britain’s Most Wanted spin-off.  London Road really digs into the ugliness of humanity at our least empathetic by just letting the most callously judgmental among us speak/sing for themselves – a feel-bad emotional & political palette that’s unusual for a movie musical.

London Road is a little too unconventional to recommend other movies exactly like it.  However, there are plenty of other musicals that touch on its grim urbanity & conversational song structure, even if only in flashes.  Here are a few recommended titles if you loved our Movie of the Month and want to see more dour, urban-set musicals on its miserable wavelength.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)

Jacques Demy’s gorgeous melodrama might be the pinnacle of the recitative movie musical as an artform.  London Road‘s central gimmick is in adapting the natural rhythms of human speech into song, turning a real-life tragedy into a modern-day opera.  Demy does the same in Umbrellas of Cherbourg, except with the gorgeous colors & soaring emotions of a Sirkian melodrama – tracking the tragic missed-connection romance of working-class sweethearts whose lives are disrupted by unwanted pregnancy & war.  It’s a musical heartbreaker about the conflict between practicality & romance, and it’s sung in the same recitative style as London Road‘s real-life tale of serial murder.

Of his two Technicolor musicals, I still strongly prefer Demy’s The Young Girls of Rochefort, simply because the more traditional musical numbers of that one are more fun to listen to than the conversational opera of this one.  London Road faces similar roadblocks in its entertainment value; the songs themselves are too restricted by its recitative conceit to be especially memorable when considered in isolation.  Like Umbrellas of Cherbourg, however, it’s a fascinating clash between artificiality and realism, and the two films glumly sing in tune when considered as a pair.

Les Misérables (2012)

2012’s movie adaptation of the stage musical Les Misérables is much, much more traditional than London Road.  The longest-running musical in the West End and the second-longest running musical in the world, Les Mis might be the very definition of tradition, which makes it an unlikely pairing.  What the two movies have in common—besides their blatant Britishness—has more to do with theme instead of form.  Like London Road, Les Mis is a grim-as-fuck reality check about harsh cultural attitudes towards sex workers and other societal cast-offs.

Making a Les Misérables movie turned out to be a logistical nightmare, getting stuck in production limbo for decades as the rights drifted from movie studio to movie studio.  The 2012 version that eventually hit the screen earned great box office and Awards Season accolades upon initial release, but it’s mostly remembered now as a kind of pop culture punchline – mainly because of Russell Crowe’s awkward singing voice and director Tom Hooper’s follow-up musical disaster Cats.  Personally, I enjoyed the film both times I watched it: in the theater in 2012 and on my couch almost a decade later. Anne Hathaway’s performance as a single mother who is punished for selling her body—sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively—for temporary survival is especially heartbreaking and feels totally at home with the pitch-black misery of London Road.

Leto (2018)

Chances are that if you’re looking for more musicals along the lines of London Road, Les Mis might be a little too traditional for a proper pairing.  A major part of London Road‘s charm is its unconventional musicality and modern, urban setting.  For another modern history lesson that sidesteps the movie musical’s conventional modes of song and dance, I’d look to 2018’s Leto, which chronicles the Soviet punk scene in 1980s Leningrad.  Most of the actual music in Leto is diegetic, featuring bands from the time like Kino & Zoopark performing in heavily censored & regulated Soviet rock clubs.  When it does break reality for traditional song & dance, the characters perform toned-down, conversational versions of classic glam & punk tunes from acts like The Talking Heads, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed.  Then, a Greek-chorus type character called The Skeptic enters the frame to inform the audience that “This did not happen” just to keep the film as grounded to its real-life history as possible.

While not as much of an overt subversion of the movie musical as London Road, Leto upends expectation in its own small, laid-back ways.  It’s more of a historically set hangout film than the all-out glam phantasmagoria of similar works like Velvet Goldmine or Lisztomania. It’s always a little alienating to watch a hagiography of musicians you’ve never heard of before, but I find the film solidly charming, if not only by the graces of its killer soundtrack.  More importantly, it shares a downtrodden urbanity & casual demeanor with London Road that you don’t get to see in a lot of movie musicals – even stripping away the theatricality of over-the-top performers like Iggy Pop & David Byrne to make their work as matter-of-fact and casual as possible.

-Brandon Ledet

Britnee’s Top 15 Films of 2019

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15. Sunkist Family – A cute, sex positive South Korean family film. It’s all about the importance of being open and honest with all members of your family (spouse and children). As the first film from female South Korean director Kim Ji-Hye, it’s super impressive. I can’t wait to see what else she has up her sleeve.

14. Ready or Not – Rich people are weird, and this movie takes that notion to another level. Watching Ready or Not was probably the most fun that I’ve had in a theater in all of 2019. There’s tons of dark humor, bloody violence, and cigarette smoking babes. All things that I enjoy in a horror movie.

13. Gully Boy – Brandon raved about Gully Boy for quite some time, but I avoided watching it initially because it’s 2 ½ hours long. I finally got around to watching it when we did a podcast episode on hip-hop biopics, and I really enjoyed it. The film was so lively, and the time went by pretty quickly. To my surprise, I kind of wanted it to keep going for another hour or so at the end.

12. Booksmart – Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut is one of the best coming-of-age comedies to ever grace the screen. It’s witty, realistic, and insanely funny. This is the teen movie that I so desperately needed to see as a teenager. I’m not bitter about it, though.

11. Paradise Hills – While I found the plot of Paradise Hills to be interesting, that’s not why the film made it on my Top 15 Films of 2019 list. It’s sort of like Stepford Wives for teenagers, so I think I would’ve been stupid obsessed with this movie if I was like 15 years old. For 29-year-old me, the film’s success comes from its gorgeous futuristic visuals. Everything from the buildings, décor, costumes, etc. are breathtaking.

10. Leto – I was clueless about Russian rock music until watching Leto, the coolest black and white Russian rock musical I’ve ever seen. It offers a glimpse into the Leningrad rock scene in the early 1980s, when the Soviet Union was alive and well. Somehow, the film is able to take what is a very revolutionary moment in history and make it not over-the-top dramatic. I think this is what makes it so compelling. Oh, and the film’s director, Kirill Serebrennikov, went to prison for essentially pissing off the Russian government during the last few weeks of the film’s production. How much more revolutionary can a movie get?

9. Us – Watching Jordan Peele’s second horror film made me feel like I was trapped in a nightmare. Just when you think the film is over, there’s a bizarre twist that legitimately haunted me for weeks. It does everything that a good horror movie should do and as a bonus, it really makes you think about what class system looks like in American society.

8. Climax – A dance party gone wrong that just feels so right. It’s really hard not to catch yourself bopping your head to the sick beats in the background while watching a dance troupe rip each other to shreds (emotionally, not literally). This movie is perhaps the darkest movie that I’ve seen all of 2019.

7. Greta – I’m becoming what one might call a psychobiddy connoisseur, and I give the film Greta the psychobiddy stamp of approval. An older woman’s obsession with a young waitress turns into a bat-shit crazy nightmare before the film is even halfway through. Isabelle Huppert’s psychotic old-world charm makes modern day NYC seems like 1950’s Paris at times, and she serves 100% psychobiddy realness in every second she is on screen. While Huppert was a huge reason why I love this movie so much, Chloë Grace Moretz’s performance was surprisingly impressive. There’s some strange chemistry between these two extremely different actresses that makes for a very interesting experience.

6. Velvet Buzzsaw – Paintings that kill, death by tattoo, and Toni Collette. What more could I ask for? The film’s satirical humor blends well with its truly horrifying imagery, which seems to be a difficult task for a film with a plot surrounding haunted, killer paintings. I love this movie for so many reasons, but what I am thankful for the most is my newfound love and respect for Jake Gyllenhaal.

5. Mister America – The wild On Cinema universe continues to grow with a feature-length film. It’s a brilliant mockumentary that gives fans of Tim Heidecker the particular type of humor they crave while providing a bit of a character study of a self-absorbed small-town politician. It made me laugh more than any other film that came out in 2019.

4. Parasite – Bong Joon-ho’s masterpiece was the talk of the town once it was released in theaters. It’s not every day that your family, friends, and coworkers are raving about a South Korean film with *gasps* subtitles. After sitting through a showing at a local theater, and I was stuck in state of awe. The way this film treats the explores the class structure of South Korea is truly brilliant.

3. In Fabric – 2019 was a fabulous year for movies about killer inanimate objects (looking at you, Velvet Buzzsaw). In Fabric brings the idea of a killer dress to the table, and I absolutely loved it. Told in the style of an anthology, this horror comedy provides entertainment in just about every second while serving up gorgeous giallo-style visuals.

2. Midsommar – Never have I seen daytime horror be so gruesomely terrifying. Super dark subject matter is played out in the bright sunny fields of Sweden, and it creates a really strange feeling that I’m unable to describe in words. You just have to see it to understand what I’m talking about. Ari Aster is making a name for himself as one of the greatest directors of horror with this incredible follow up to last year’s Hereditary.

1. Knife + Heart – This is without a doubt the best film of 2019. I spent a good while trying to determine whether Knife + Heart (Un coteau dans le coeur) or Midsommar should take the number one spot, but after watching both films a second time, there was no doubt in my mind that Knife + Heart was the winner. The film contains all components of a classic giallo, except that every character is homosexual. The plot becomes more intriguing with each watch, and its bright, neon colors with the fabulous M83 soundtrack pulsating in the background will turn any room into a seedy nightclub. I love it all so much. This queer twist on the giallo genre is nothing short of perfection.

-Britnee Lombas

Leto (2019)

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Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov is known for criticizing Russian government with his work on stage and screen, putting him high on Putin’s radar. During the final week of wrapping up and editing his most recent film, Leto, Serebrennikov was arrested for “fraud” charges, forcing him to complete his work on the film under house arrest. Many (including myself) believe this arrest was politically motivated, so the fact that Serebrennikov pushed through and completed Leto regardless of his circumstances is so badass. He even did it without being connected to the internet (Russian government took it away as part of his sentence). Leto, a musical film about Russia’s revolutionary rock movement in the early 1980s, has rebellion running through its veins. That alone is enough reason to watch this movie.

Leto (loosely translated from the Russian word for “Summer”) takes place in repressive Leningrad in the early 1980s. Rock music is loved by the Soviet Union’s youth, but older folk view it as music of the enemy because of its Western roots (influenced by Bowie, T. Rex, Lou Reed). The Leningrad Rock Club has recently opened and serves as the heart of the Soviet Union’s rock scene. The problem is that it’s overseen by the KGB and all musicians’ lyrics must be approved prior to performances. During the film’s beginning, the band Zoopark is performing at the Leningrad Rock Club to a seated audience being monitored by police. If anyone does anything beyond light claps for applause, head bobbing, and toe tapping, the police are on their ass. Watching a venue full of people quietly sitting while high-energy music is blaring through the speakers was beyond strange. Zoopark’s front man, Mike Naumenko (Roman Bilyk), is a prominent figure in this new scene. He’s a cool guy who wears sunglasses indoors and keeps things as funky as possible while following the rules of the KGB. He eventually meets Viktor Tsoi (Te Yoo), the singer and songwriter from the band Kino. Viktor is a little more rebellious with his music than Mike, but not enough to get him in jail or kicked out of the rock club. The relationship between Mike and Viktor is an interesting one. It’s hard to tell if Mike views Viktor as competition or if he wants to take Viktor under his wing and guide him through this new, growing music scene. Their relationship becomes even more confusing when Natasha (Irina Starshenbaum), Mike’s wife and mother to his child, gets permission from Mike to hook up with Viktor.

Zoopark and Kino are actual bands and Mike and Viktor are real-life members of those bands. However, this film is not considered to be a biopic. It’s more like historical fiction loosely based on two bands considered to be founding fathers of Russian rock music. There are times throughout the film where characters break the fourth wall to say, “This really didn’t happen.” prior to a scene. It’s a quirky way to remind us all that we are not watching a biopic, even though it really feels like we are. I went into this film knowing nothing about Russian rock music, much less Russian rock music from the early 80s, and I didn’t feel like I was ever not in the know. The film sort of jumps into the plot without any background or history, but its in-the-moment style is done so well that there is no need for a newcomer like me to be brought up to speed.

What really made Leto memorable for me was the film’s unique style. The entire film is in black and white (with a few flashbacks in grainy color), and there are musical moments with hand-drawn scribbles floating all over the screen. My favorite musical number was a rendition of the Talking Heads hit “Psycho Killer” during a violent train altercation. I’ve watched it multiple times. Let it be known that there aren’t that many musical numbers, so don’t avoid seeing this movie if you’re not a fan of musicals.

-Britnee Lombas