★★☆☆☆ You need only cast your mind back as far as Paweł Pawlikowski’s The Woman in the Fifth (2011) to find a French/Polish collaboration comparable to Elles (2011), the latest film from director Malgoska Szumowska. Replacing Kristin Scott Thomas as the French star in this instance is the award-winning Juliette Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Borgia (2011) is a grand costume drama charting the torrid loves and tangled political lives of the infamous, self-promoting 15th century Italian dynasty. Starring Isolda Dychauk as the legendary Lucrezia Borgia, Mark Ryder and Stanley Weber as her brothers Cesare and Juan and John Doman as Rodrigo Borgia, this Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Billed as a free interpretation of Goethe’s original play, Alexander Sokurov’s Faust (2011) sees the Russian auteur returning to his proclivity for challenging depictions of male protagonists, to somewhat perplexing results. Collating his traditional cinematic interests, namely the fragility and combined strengths and weaknesses of masculinity, Faust is a Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Icíar Bollaín’s 2010 film-within-a-film Even the Rain is a political drama set during the Bolivian Water Wars of 2000. A labour of love, by screenwriter Paul Laverty’s own admission, having been ten years in the making, Laverty’s own script went through several re-writes until the film went into production. Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ More an exercise in reinforcing a legend rather than unearthing its roots, Kevin Macdonald’s reggae documentary Marley (2012) is an interesting, yet ultimately shallow and linear sweep through the life and work of Robert Nesta Marley. Nobody, but especially anyone who has a vested interest in maintaining the legacy, Continue Reading