★★★☆☆ Unceremoniously winching its way onto DVD this week despite contending for top honours at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival, Greek director Spiros Stathoulopoulos’ (PVC-1) snail-paced Metéora (2012) makes up for its lack of narrative dynamism through some deeply evocative religious symbolism and arresting vistas captured by Stathoulopoulos himself. Set Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Hot on the heels of the highly acclaimed In the House (2012), suddenly prolific French auteur François Ozon returned last year with coming-of-ager Jeune & Jolie (2013), an engaging if overly diminutive story of a teenager’s blossoming sexuality set over four seasons. Having previously explored the combined mores, difficulties and Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Described by its writer and director Tomasz Wasilewski as “the first Polish LGBT film”, Floating Skyscrapers (2013) boldly goes where n Pole has gone before in its intricate study of repressed homosexuality. Mateusz Banasiuk stars as aspiring champion swimmer Kuba, an ambitious athlete with the world at his feet. Continue Reading
★★★★★ Crusading documentaries have now become a common sub-genre: from Michael Moore’s slick polemics and eco-worrier Al Gore’s persuasive An Inconvenient Truth (2006) to the animal rights appeals of both The Cove (2009) and Blackfish (2013). As such, these high profile offerings present the film critic with something of a Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ As Don Jon’s (2013) opening credits present a series of images highlighting the objectification of woman in the media, juxtaposed with a thudding and syrupy romantic score, it’s clear something a little different is at work in Joseph Gordon-Levitt directorial bow. While he may make the odd narrative misstep Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Actor turned director Jalil Lespert’s latest feature, Yves Saint Laurent (2014), sets about the ambitious task of condensing into an 106-minute film the life and work of one of fashion’s most celebrated icons. The result is a stylish melodrama, enriched by touching performances from Comédie-Française actors Pierre Niney and Continue Reading
★★★★☆ With The Unknown Known (2013), inimitable documentarian Errol Morris has taken the age old adage “Give em enough rope” before expanding it into a timely political critique; an oft-infuriating but deft tête-à-tête with former US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld. In a performance that even ‘Teflon Tony’ Blair would Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Having paced the peripheries of the British film industry for over twenty years (going all the way back to his striking 1994 debut Dirty Diamonds), director David Mackenzie appears to be on the verge of bagging his first mainstream hit. His latest feature, the gritty prison drama Starred Up Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ A stoic tough guy being confronted by his own maltreated conscience is hardly a novelty in cinema. When the convention is adopted, there is always the hope that it with the intention to approach the subject from some fresh angle, or provide a new kind of insight into age-old Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ “What are you looking forward to doing on your release?” Johann Rettenberger (Andreas Lust) is asked by his parole officer at the beginning of Benjamin Heisenberg’s lean Austrian crime thriller The Robber (Der Räuber, 2010). “Not running around in circles,” he replies. However, Johann doesn’t simply mean his regular Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Welsh writer and director Caradog W. James’ The Machine (2013) is a terrifying vision of a dystopian world that may not be too far into the future. Vincent (Toby Stephens) is a government scientist working on various forms of artificial intelligence in order to create the ultimate robot fighter Continue Reading
★★☆☆☆ Based on David Mamet’s play Sexual Perversity in Chicago, Steve Pink’s About Last Night (2014) – also a remake of the 1986 rom-com starring Rob Lowe and Demi Moore – attempts to provide a modern spin on the trials and tribulations of romantic relationships for 21st century audiences. Yet instead Continue Reading
Now in its 18th year, the Human Rights Watch Film Festival runs from 18-28 March 2014 with a programme of twenty award-winning documentary and feature films screening at the Curzon Mayfair, Curzon Soho, Ritzy Brixton and the Barbican. Jehane Noujaim’s award-winning documentary The Square (2013) serves as the Festival’s fundraising Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Martial arts cinema never fails to surprise. Take, for instance, the visually stunning, high-kicking Vietnamese period adventure The Lady Assassin (2013). In this garish, cartoon-esque adventure – starring Kim Dzung, Tang Thanh Ha, Thanh Hang, Thai-Hoa Le, Diem My and Ngoc Quyen – director Quang Dung Nguyen and writer Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ “Taking photographs with a view camera is a world apart,” explains celebrated Gallic photographer and filmmaker Raymond Depardon as he clicks his shutter. It’s through this deliberate medium that he has chosen to capture a later-life nationwide trek to experience the homeland that he has long neglected in favour Continue Reading