Getting into film this summer. Attended a six-week course on becoming a film critic, not amazingly edifying but I did get a few good tips. Our tutor gave us a heads up to see Autumn Ball, the opening film of the Pluk de Nacht outdoor film festival, which, I duly did (see review below).

Temporarliy set up on some wasteland in the NW of Amsterdam, Pluk de Nacht (Seize the Night), seemed a wonderland of industrial, retro colour and ambience from the moment I approached it’s tubular entrance arch. On my own and incredibly early in order to get a seat, I bagged a soft space on some old, velvet nightclub couch of some kind and asked some merry folk nearby to guard it while I joined the huge queue for a beer. Didn’t last long as I spotted a deserted stall selling G&T’s or the like, obviously too fancy for this crowd, but just the thing for an impatient English girl sick to death of Heineken. Sitting down to drink and pretend to read my book in the dying light of the day, I took in the sights and smells of the Pluk de Nacht.

Well the smells were basically hashish mixed with some fresh estuary air, I inhaled a good amount of both happily enough. It was strong stuff. Passing industrial ships wafted down the Ij from the North Sea and a few picnic-ers perched precariously on the very edge of the Westerdoksdijk, calm as you like. Those daring Dutch.

Containers piled up in a wall made for the backdrop to the cinema screen, deckchairs all around. Another container dump housed the projector and some busy techies. A few large utility vehicles were parked up to double as extra-cool VIP viewing areas and a VW camper van at the back seemed to attract the coolest cool kids. What had obviously been a barren, ugly car park of a place had been defiantly beautified and the vibrant crowd seemed to lounge around as if in their own boudoir garage.

My review for Autumn Ball: (Sügisball)

Depicting life in and around a grim, high-rise housing development, an area called Lasnamäe, on the edge of Estonia’s capital, this film is a collage of characters suffering the effects of urban alienation. Mati, a cuckolded writer, fluctuates between quiet despair and aggression. A promiscuous doorman, Theo, shows some aspiration but can’t seem to escape mediocracy. Laura frets over her daughter’s well-being and limits her guilty pleasures to escapist TV and a daytime tipple. An architect’s wife struggles with her pretentious husband’s disdain, whilst an old barber is simply bored and lonely. That’s all the plot you need as there is little interaction going on at all, that’s the point, but most of the key characters do end up having an outburst of some kind that shakes them up. Several also endure the judgement of others, say from buying porn at the supermarket, or friendly behaviour taken for paedophilia. Instead of showing defiance, most of them meekly accept their shame, Theo excluded.

There are glimpses of a sparkling, confident side of the city but that contrast with life in isolated Lasnamäe is not played upon much, and nor are the politics of the region. Also, the restrained use of dialogue gives rein to a pervading score which soothes the appetite for words and puts the focus on the confined movements of each character. The settings themselves often take centre stage and the enigmatic landscapes, such as desolate roads and a soulless factory, are all expertly shot. Autumn Ball’s director surprisingly labels it a black comedy and there are certainly some oddly laughable moments, when Mati is caught spying on his wife, for one, but they are rare. Though for anyone who truly loathes romantic comedies, you might get some sick gratification from Theo’s violent response to the genre at the end of the film.

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