Long-time readers may recall me raving about the movie Wristcutters: a Love Story quite a while ago – in fact I actually saw it at the 2006 Edinburgh International Film Festival, where it was my favourite flick of the entire fest. As with any independent movie getting the finances and resources to make it is a huge struggle, but one the film is in the can there’s a whole new struggle in trying to get it picked up by a distributor in order to reach cinema screens and actually be seen by audiences, something I’m sure many indy creators of comics and novels will also empathise with. The film finally got a general release in the US late this autumn and now the Edinburgh Film Fest site is reporting that at long last it will get a UK release, opening here on November 23rd.
The film is based on famed Israeli writer Etgar Keret’s short prose story, which was also (independently) adapted by Asaf Hanuka into the graphic novel Pizzeria Kamikaze, which was published by Alternative Comics a couple of years ago. The central idea of a rather down-at-heels world where suicides end up and no-one can smile may seem morbid and depressing but the film is anything but; actually it is quirky, often funny, touching and life-affirming without being slushy. The film is different from the graphic novel (and both from the original short story) in some aspects as you’d imagine since each is a different medium, but all have a similar feel. At a Q&A after the Edinburgh Festival screening the director Goran Dukic mentioned talking on the phone to the original author, who told him it was also being adapted into a graphic novel. Although the graphic novel and movie were independent of one another it seems Etgar did pass back and forth a few ideas, such as how each creator was trying to make a particular scene or character work in their different mediums. I’d heartily recommend both the graphic novel and the movie when it finally hits UK screens; my original review of it is on the blog here and the EIFF has an interview with the director here.
The EIFF site also notes another, more recent Festival screening (from this summer) will also be getting a general release in the UK shortly – In the Shadow of the Moon. Science fact rather than science fiction, but I suspect many of my fellow SF geeks will love this documentary which talks to the surviving Apollo astronauts (sadly Neil Armstrong declined to take part though) and which has some simply stunning footage, much of it previously unseen, of the glory days of the Space Race. I know it certainly punched all my own space geek buttons with some astonishing visuals of, let’s face it, some truly astonishing feats and at the more personal level it is quite remarkable to see these now elderly gentlemen, looking just like someone’s favourite uncle of grandpa (which they probably are) and hear them talk about what they did in their youth, how they actually walked on the Moon. Despite decades of technological advances that’s a heroic accomplishment still to be equaled, let alone surpassed. Not everyone’s cup of tea, perhaps, but for space geeks it is a must-see film; In the Shadow of the Moon opens on November 2nd.
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