London Film Festival Review: Love Live Long
Mike Figgis' (Internal Affairs, Leaving Las Vegas, Timecode) latest film was commissioned by Gumball 3000, the burgeoning 'lifestyle and entertainment company' behind the Gumball Rally. But don't worry because as you'd expect from a 21st century Figgis work, this isn't by any stretch a grooming promotional piece. Rather, it continues the director's fascination with digital cinema (from 2000's Timecode onwards) and the diverse possibilities the technology throws up; an exploratory film built around the Gumball event.
A trans-European, 3000 mile road trip for a bootful of assorted trustifarians and moneyed celebrities, The Gumball Rally has garnered its fair share of press coverage since its inception in 1999. When approached by Gumball 3000, Figgis has admitted being less than ecstatic at the prospect of a straight documentary on the rally. But when a second offer came in to simply make a film that in some way involved the rally, he decided it could be a project worth pursuing. What resulted is a single camera digitally shot genre mash-up, which encompasses everything from conventional documentary, through mockumentary and video diary, to pure fiction.
The narrative around which Figgis builds in these various styles and approaches is a love story of sorts – the subtle skew on Sandie Shaw's Long Live Love hints at the perversity to come. A depressed young woman, Rachel (Sophie Winkleman), has a chance encounter with arrogant Gumball driver, Darren (Daniel Lapaine), as the rally hits Istanbul. And, without exposing the whole trajectory of the film, that's pretty much it. A one page treatment formed the basis of the shoot, the bare bones of a plot, allowing the dialogue to be improvised on location with the lead actors cast just two days prior to the off. On returning to London Figgis wasn't really sure what he had; a documentary, a love story, or something else completely. On watching Love Live Long, the answer is all of the above and much more.
Chance played a big role in what ended up on film, so while arrests of many Gumballers in Germany precluded some of the car shots Figgis was after, an impromptu Islamic protest gave him access to thousands of extras and some of the most striking shots in the film, as the disillusioned Rachel glides through the crowds in a white dress, a dazed fallen angel in a sea of red flags. Similarly, the death of two locals, when an overenthusiastic but under-skilled driver lost control of his car, added an unexpected angle to proceedings.
Inevitably with a film that explores so many different stylistic avenues, Love Live Long can feel very uneven, moving from nouvelle vague inspired moody soul searching to highly comical mockumentary in a flash. One moment we're treated to lingering close-ups of the sunglasses clad Rachel, damaged but sultry in a hotel room, whilst the next we lurch to a wonderfully amusing talking head interview as Darren struggles with the concept of a spice market. Some scenes are less distinct, and divorced from a consistent tonal context throughout, we're unsure whether they're being played for (blackly comic) laughs or not. There are also some frightening moments of degradation - in particular, a pivotal bedroom scene shot entirely in night vision is horribly convincing. Both Winkleman and Lapaine are a joy to watch, and slip into their characters in a naturalistic way that suits the immediacy of Figgis' style.
Despite the tonal and visual shifts, the overall effect is nowhere near as disconcerting as it may sound and, bar a tacked-on London coda which fails to add much, it does feel like a remarkably whole film. When you consider too the background to the shooting and the experimental approach, even more so. Much of the appeal lies with the audience exploring the possibilities of cinema with Figgis. To a greater extent than the similarly experimental Dogme '95 movement, we’re frequently drawn from the narrative and reminded that we’re watching a film. There's no classical Hollywood 'invisible' storytelling here. It's an exciting, imaginative and soulful piece of film making that's at least 3000 miles from the brash and ostentatious world of Gumballers the film shimmies around.
