Maudie (Aisling Walsh, 2016)

 

Sally Hawkins plays Maud Dowley, a poor woman with acute arthritis in 1930s Nova Scotia in a biography that merits credit for sticking to the facts of her life instead of exploiting her tribulations and descending into tear-jerking, not least those to do with her relationship with a fisherman, played by Ethan Hawke, a brute of a man who takes her on as a cleaner and turns quickly into her virtual captor. But even his character is more complex than that, so when an affection develops between them as the cards and pictures she paints, initially just to keep her dreams alive, find wider and wider popularity and a degree of local fame, the introduction of a small note of happiness at last is not implausible or mawkish. The performances of the two leads help a lot too: Hawke's is nuanced and Hawkins, as much as we're used to seeing her signature role by now as an irrepressibly cheerful one, delivers the portrayal with delicate poise and deserved all the plaudits she got for the performance.

7/10

Transit (Christian Petzold, 2018)

 

It only gradually dawns on you as the story of Transit develops, that while we're in present-day France, it's really the world as it was in 1940, with Jewish refugees trying to get out of France before the Germans reach the south of the country. A curious transposition, and one that leads you to wonder whether budgetary concerns about recreating the look of the past also played a part in the decision as well as it obviously allowing the director to universalise the them of Anna Seghers's novel to include the plight of any refugees from any time.

So we follow Georg, determined to make it onto a ship in Marseille, assuming the identity of a deceased writer to get the transit visa he needs. Then he falls in love with a woman who is also trying to get away, and the ethics of keeping up so many lies start to complicate things further.

There are a lot of themes competing for space here, at times to each other's detriment, but the progression is unconventional enough to hook the viewer and reward persevering with it.

7/10