Midlands Review of True Love Comes Quietly
midlandsmovies • May 12, 2020
Midlands Review of True Love Comes Quietly
True Loves Comes Quietly
Directed by Danyl Rathband
2020
VTP Productions
A man reluctantly wakes up to the sound of his mobile phone going off in the beginning of new seven and a half minute short True Loves Come Quietly from director Danyl Rathband.
The film stars Midlands Movies Awards nominee Varakunan Panchalingam who takes the call from his mum before struggling out of bed to start his day.
The film is shot partly in Tamil with subtitles which gives the short a nice flavour and always helps to shine a light on the warm diversity of the Midlands region. And later also provides comedy stemming from many word misunderstandings.
As our lead gets dressed, puts his shades and headphones on, he then heads down the street with a spring in his step to an upbeat soundtrack before entering a local coffee shop.
A quick piece of advice would be to simply shorten the intro credits. The last name appears at 1 minute 52 seconds in which is a huge amount of time for a short under 8 minutes. Almost a quarter of the runtime. For comparison, using a similar percentage would see still credits rolling after 30 minutes in a modern mainstream film.
In most cases from the shorts I’ve seen, a title and maybe a “directed by” credit is all that’s needed. My advice for budding filmmakers is to place everything else at the end. This ensures you get the most out of your limited runtime and pull an audience straight into your story.
Back to the story we find the man being asked for his order by a barista, which gets mistranslated, before our lead becomes smitten by a woman (Ambika Sharma) who joins him at his table. Noisily slurping his soup, he then rudely takes a phone-call which leads to an embarrassing skit where we (loudly) only hear half of a cringeworthy conversation.
The differences in language is a unique angle to create a comedy clash and the film is made with a lot of heart about dating blunders but certainly could have been fleshed out a bit more with the two characters. Written by Varakunan Panchalingam and Danyl Rathband, True Love Comes Quietly therefore ends as a nice, if somewhat slight, slice of romance and comedy with a fun premise.
Michael Sales
With a number of acclaimed films under his belt including Cosmo, Gone Fishing and The Morgue Party, Jonathan Hawes launches a new short, once again in his favourite genre of comedy. Midlands Movies Mike Sales speaks to the writer/director about his latest project, his influences and his plans for the film.
Up! (1976) Dir. Russ Meyer Well, bi-Adolf Hitler BDSM is not something (a) I thought I’d ever see 5 minutes into a movie and (b) ever expected to write in my lifetime to be fair but this spicy start is pretty standard for the work of exploitation filmmaker Russ Meyer. Up! is a kind of r*pe-revenge softcore p*rn film (there’s gonna be a fair bit of self-censorship in this review so apologies in advance), the type Meyer is known for. I’d describe the plot in more detail but it’s mostly a convoluted and incoherent mess of double-crossing, murder, violence and lots and lots of humping. In short, a man called Adolph gets murdered and a woman investigates (kinda) the circumstances but as she does so, a group of locals blackmail, attack and screw each other with the murder mystery barely mentioned throughout. With so little narrative, it could be argued if it’s essentially p*rn? To be fair, not far off. It’s about extreme as you can go without simply making a s*x film. Is that a…no, it’s a belly button hole. Bookending the film (and also seen at various points throughout) is a Greek Chorus - simply a busty fully nude woman of course - who delivers dialogue like “Pummelling the scrotum with joyous supplication” and other such poeticisms. This artistic flourish is mostly pointless - the actress herself saying the words were tough to learn because it was utter nonsense. On a technical level, the editing is surprisingly well done and the 4k image is frankly fantastic. Someone somewhere must be putting together a post-modern take about the beautiful landscapes and cinematography of Meyer’s * ahem * output. But it definitely does have a kitsch artistry. It has certainly provided plenty of cinematic influence though. Elements of Tarantino grindhouse sensibilities are on show - Meyers likes bosoms as much as Quents likes feet - and there’s even a leather gimp early on. I can also see how its had an impact on Ti West X’s with a focus on sexuality and the body as well, more obviously, Anna Biller’s feminist-twist The Love Witch (2016). Suffice to say it’s not for the weak of heart. I think in this day and age you can’t go into this completely blind to its style, period and context though. It's an X-rated Carry On style that was bad taste then and it’s bad taste now. It revels in its sleaziness without a single hint of shame or apology. Simply saying 'deal with it'. The main negative though is the absence of plot - if the film can even be looked at like that - which is barely present. This is a shame as the whole thing could do with a bit more coherence rather than endless shagging. But it’s far from titillation, it’s mostly clowning - albeit a very adult version of it. More saucy than sexy. Trying to review this through modern sensibilities is almost impossible. It’s as offensive can be from the first scene through to the final credits - heck even this 4k menu is simply one of the film's many s*x scenes. But there are some progressive themes as it doesn’t shy from confronting sexual freedom, bisexuality, gay sex, BDSM and consensual exploration. There's moments of comedy thrown in and I enjoyed a frankly hilarious 5-minute monologue explaining the culprit’s intentions, which was a ludicrous way to deliver a slasher-style ending. I suppose the main thing about Up! (and Meyers’ work overall) is there’s a sort of love it or loathe it quality about the whole shebang. But it’s so unlike anything being made today - for good or bad - that it’s never anything other than unpredictably fascinating. More explicit than most Meyers films - in fact more than any film - it’s a lewd, rude and crude (s)exploration with a satirical edge and campy enjoyment bouncing from every frame. ★★★ 3 / 5 Michael Sales Severin Films releases Russ Meyers' UP! (1976) and MOTORPSYCHO (1965) on 28 April 2025 in newly restored and scanned 4k with hours of new and archival Special Features https://severinfilms.co.uk/
On the 24th of April, the Midlands Art Centre opened its doors to Gobby Flicks Productions for a night of live comedy. Proceeds were raised towards the production of new short comedy films, directed and written by women.
Ti West’s The House of the Devil makes a wonderful companion piece to his film The Innkeepers. Both maintain the director’s referential approach to horror, incapsulating it in a slow burning 90 minutes that manages to build and maintain tension while cheekily winking to the audience and showing the mechanisms behind the scares.