Film reviews and more
★★★★☆ Originally conceived as one 130-minute feature film, Paradise: Hope (2013) sees 60-year-old Austrian director Ulrich Seidl (2007’s Import/Export) complete his trilogy of films inspired by Odon von Horvath’s 1932 play Faith, Hope and Charity. The final chapter in the trilogy leaves us with the remaining young girl of the three women whose […]
★★★☆☆ Tackling the sensitive and provocative issue of pornography addiction is a brave move for any director, even more so if it’s your debut feature and one that’s sure to receive heavy scrutiny due to your impressive resume of on-screen acting roles. This is the mammoth undertaking Joseph Gordon-Levitt has handed himself with […]
★★☆☆☆ Malgoska Szumowska’s In the Name Of (W imie, 2013) is first out the blocks in the race for this year’s Golden Bear prize. An uneven, yet innovative examination of love through the constraints of the Catholic church, Szumowska’s follow up to the underwhelming Elles (2011) is a patchy affair that asks its […]
★★★★☆ The impressive third feature from Greek director Thanos Anastopoulos, The Daughter (2012) provides an intelligently rendered, gripping drama reflecting the wider issues of Greece’s current financial crisis. When 14-year-old Myrto (Savina Alimani) discovers that her father has mysteriously disappeared, she stalks the Athenian streets trying to discover where he’s fled to and […]
★★★☆☆ Premièring in the Panorama section of this year’s 63rd Berlin Film Festival, A Fold in My Blanket (Chemi sabnis naketsi, 2013) is the debut feature from Georgian filmmaker and former Berlin resident Zaza Rusadze. Ignoring the usual gritty and harsh approach to social commentary, Rusadze’s examination of the social constraints of a […]
★★☆☆☆ Lo-fi realist director Matt Porterfield returns to the public eye with third feature and Berlin Film Festival entrant I Used to Be Darker (2013), a sombre and incredibly despondent look at the declining sanctity of traditional family values in contemporary American society, told from the wide-eyed and innocent perspective of a young […]