Cannes 2012: ‘Student’ review
★★☆☆☆ An contemporary re-telling of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Darezhan Omirbaev’s Student (2012) paints a grim portrayal of post-Soviet Kazakhstan, with occasional moments of...
★★☆☆☆ “An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,” Percy Shelley once wrote in his sonnet England in 1819. He was firing his barbs at King George III but the words could just as well be used for any number of English monarchs including Henry VIII.
★★★★★ Turkish master director Nuri Bilge Ceylan returns to the Cannes Croisette with About Dry Grasses, a wonderful wintry meditation on male fragility and the way we often make our own hells and then deceive ourselves that we’re trapped.
★★★★☆ From sub-Saharan Africa to Afghanistan, Syria to Iraq and Iran, the climate crisis, drought, war, and oppression has created a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. It is treated as an ethical conundrum, but it isn’t. Either we wish to save those who are in danger of dying, or all our talk of human rights is just so much hot air. This is the core concern of Green Border.
★★★★☆ With Luca Guadagnino’s terrific Challengers, the acclaimed director of Call Me By Your Name brings us the sub-genre we never knew we needed: the erotic tennis thriller.
★★☆☆☆ Directors Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett’s “Abigail” mashes up crime caper and monster movie, but fails to deliver fear or humor. Spoilery trailers and unoriginal characters overshadow promising elements, resulting in a dull, lifeless experience lacking creativity and wit.
★★☆☆☆ Maïwenn’s French period drama Jeanne du Barry is the perfect opening salvo for the 76th Cannes Film Festival. It is as glitzy and gaudy as the festival itself, with its vacuous politics drowned out by the thunderous sound of it slapping its own back.
★★☆☆☆ An contemporary re-telling of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Darezhan Omirbaev’s Student (2012) paints a grim portrayal of post-Soviet Kazakhstan, with occasional moments of...
★★★★☆ As Steven Soderbergh edges ever closer to his long-foretold retirement from cinema, it seems he is becoming drawn to films about and starring...
★★★★★ Austrian director Michael Haneke gives us the first real masterpiece of the 65th Cannes Film Festival with French language effort Amour (Love, 2012),...
★★☆☆☆ This year’s 65th Cannes Film Festival welcomed not one but two Cronenberg’s as David’s son Brandon premiered his debut film Antiviral (2012). Set...
★★☆☆☆ Australian singer/songwriter Nick Cave’s numerous collaborations with fellow countryman John Hillcoat stretch back to video shoots, debut film Ghosts…of the Civil Dead (1988),...
★★★☆☆ Palme d’Or hopeful Beyond the Hills (2012) is only the third film from Romanian director Cristian Mungiu, whose last effort, the grim but...
There are worse things one can do on a Thursday evening than see away a couple of pints, curled up on a sofa at...
★★★★★ After receiving rapturous acclaim earlier this year at Sundance, Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) makes its way to the 65th...