ALSO SHOWING
Birds of Passage ( 15)
It’s not exactly accurate to describe this Colombian narco drama as a genre film, but it’s not entirely inaccurate either. The new movie from the makers of 2015’ s hallucinogenic arthouse hit Embrace
of the Serpent has many of the signifiers found in films such as
Scarface and Sicario, but in zeroing in on one indigenous group, the Wayuu, and tracking the escalating drug wars via a family actively involved in the trade, it resists the cinematic temptation to serve up the sort of pulpy, visceral thrills that those aforementioned American classics often revel in. Split into five chapters, the film follows the rise of a criminal kingpin over 12 turbulent years. The overall effect can feel quite distancing, but it does provide a unique perspective on a familiar story, one with the sort of tragic consequences that are all too familiar.
Beats ( 15)
Set in Scotland in 1994 – the year in which the Criminal Justice Bill signalled the end of free- party era of illegal raves – this manages the tricky task of delivering a culturally specific coming- of- age movie in a way feels simultaneously cutting edge yet affectionate. Adapted by director and co- writer Brian Welsh from co- writer Kieran Hurley’s hit play of the same name, it boasts amusing and lively lead performances from relative newcomers Cristian Ortega and Lorn Macdonald as a pair of Central Belt bampots determined to attend their first rave before their lives take divergent paths. Shot in black- andwhite to mythologise their humdrum existence, the monochrome also helps signify the marginalised nature of the scene politically and culturally in an era in which Brit Pop had the ear of the New Labour establishment. ■