Something to watch tonight: Monday 14 July
The Man in the Hat (Warbeck, 2020)
Monday would normally be a new releases column here at Funerals & Snakes but this week – and for the next three – I’m filling in for Simon Morris on RNZ National’s At the Movies.
Seeing as they are paying real money, I feel like they should get first dibs on my opinions1 so I’ll excerpt the reviews after they are posted online on Wednesday. The delay is regretted but it’s worse for the broadcast audience. Since At the Movies is now online-only on Wednesdays, radio listeners have to wait until next Sunday afternoon. That’s a full 11 days after Superman (for example) landed in cinemas.
But while I’m thinking about At the Movies, I want to draw your attention to a programme I made in August 2021. A surprise hit of the recent French Film Festival, Stephen Warbeck’s The Man in the Hat was about to get a wide release in local cinemas but the arrival of some community Covid cases meant New Zealand went into Level 4 lockdown and public gatherings were once again forbidden. I’d already recorded an interview with Warbeck for the show2 but the release of the film itself was wrecked.
I’d already previewed it for the festival season and said this:
There is surely no odder film in the festival this year than The Man in the Hat, not least because it is basically an almost silent Irish film (IMDB says UK but it is so Irish) set in France. Perennial screen villain Ciarán Hinds proves to be very light on his feet as the actual Man in the Hat, on a road trip through Southern France in search of a lost love whose photograph he carries on the passenger seat of his little Fiat 500.
Witnessing what he thinks is a mafia gang disposing of a body, he high tails it out of town followed by the quintet, a chase that is rendered somewhat ineffective by the unreliability of their 2CV. The leader of the gang is played by Stephen Dillane (also a Game of Thrones alumnus) and, confusingly, he also often wears a hat.
The Man in the Hat is a road movie with comic set pieces inspired by the great Jacques Tati and on a cold winter’s night at the pictures it will warm the cockles of your heart.
The Man in the Hat was Warbeck’s debut as a director but he is best known as a composer, winning an Oscar for his score for Shakespeare in Love in 1998. The editor-in-chief is a big fan of that music, using it in shows for her costume students and after I told Warbeck that, he took the time to write a personal email thanking her for her support and recounting a story about how it came to be.
So, he’s a diamond geezer and everyone should watch his film.
Where to watch The Man in the Hat
Aotearoa: Streaming on Beamafilm3 or digital rental from AroVision
Australia: Streaming on Beamafilm
Canada: Digital rental
Ireland: Digital rental
India: Not currently available
USA: Streaming on Prime Video or Kanopy4
UK: Streaming on Prime Video
I’ve already shared some early opinions about Superman with Emile Donovan on last Friday’s RNZ Nights.
I interviewed Stephen Warbeck via Zoom from a rehearsal room in London where he was just about to go to the first read through of Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light for the National Theatre.
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