Film reviews and more
★★★☆☆ British director Ben Wheatley has a bold habit of experimentation, having previously married kitchen sink drama to comic crime thriller in 2009’s Down Terrace, social realism to occult horror in 2011’s Kill List, and British camping comedy to serial […]
★★★★☆ Championed by the likes of Talking Head David Byrne, Beck and eccentric Welsh songsmith Gruff Rhys, the popularity of this influential wave of Brazilian music has been gaining momentum for a number of years. Interest has now been deemed […]
★★★☆☆ Ulrich Seidl’s Paradise: Faith (Paradise: Glaube, 2012), the second chapter in the Austrian’s Paradise trilogy, begins with a semi-naked hausfrau flagellating herself in front of an effigy of Christ – and just gets stranger. Powerful in parts, yet raw […]
★★☆☆☆ A great way to keep costs low, the single location setup has long been a keen ally of the no-budget filmmaker. The key, however, is to find a credible reason for people not to leave. It’s a theatrical device […]
★★★★☆ Rereleased to tie in with a two-month retrospective at BFI Southbank, it’s been almost forty years since Werner Herzog’s The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974) debuted on screens. Although a little obtuse and raggedy at times, this beguiling and […]
★★★☆☆ ‘When boundless love meets sectarian boundaries’ is by no means the most enticing underpinning narrative; nor does it sound particularly controversial. However, Michael Mayer’s feature debut, Out in the Dark (2012), proves that even the most overplayed melodies of […]