BFI London Film Festival: Pick of the day - This Must Be the Place

10 April 2012

Saving (some of) the best until last, the Festival today unveils This Must Be the Place, a gloriously loopy road movie about a reclusive rock star in search of the Concentration Camp guard who brutalised his father. So far, so grim.

But factor in the following. (1) The movie is directed by Paolo Sorrentino, the Italian stylist responsible for such delights as Il divo and The Consequences of Love. (2) The rock star is played by Sean Penn replete with Goth make-up, red lipstick and Robert Smith-style hair, talking in a high whisper (one of the film's delights is the way in which everyone he runs into treats him as if he looked perfectly normal). (3) There is a sequence in which David Byrne plays the title song which has to be seen to be believed (even having seen it, I'm not sure I believe it).

In fact, as with Tinkerbell and the fairies, Sorrentino's film asks you politely to believe in what it is doing. Buy in, and you'll have a great evening. Resist the film's exquisitely realised but somewhat campy charms and you could find yourself rushing for the exit.


The 55th BFI London Film Festival, in partnership with American Express, runs until October 27. All venues, screening dates and times at www.bfi.org.uk, where booking is now open; also by telephone, 020 7928 3232 (9.30am-8.30pm daily), or in person at the box office of BFI Southbank, SE1 (11am-8.30pm daily). Stand-by tickets may be available 30 minutes before screening at the venue.

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