Day: 16 February 2019
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Berlin 2019: So Long, My Son review
★★★★☆ Sixth generation director Wang Xiaoshuai returns to Berlin with a decade-spanning family drama set against some of the most turbulent events in recent Chinese history. At just over three-hours, So Long, My Son is an emotionally wrenching film that’s epic in scope but intimate in feeling. Depicting China’s difficult transition from state-controlled communism to state-sanctioned…
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Berlin 2019: Hellhole review
★★★★☆ In Michael Haneke’s Code Unknown, Juliette Binoche’s character Anne rides the Paris metro and is spat at by a young man with darker skin. In Bas Devos’ Hellhole, Alba Rohrwacher’s character rides the underground in Brussels and looks on as armed police survey her fellow passengers, who also have darker skin. In Haneke’s pre-9/11 film…
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Film Review: The Lady Eve
★★★★★ To modern audiences, screwball comedies serve as slapstick forms of the moving image. Yet, behind this, they unbalance gender politics in placing the dim-witted male against an intellectually superior female protagonist. No exception to this is Preston Sturges’ The Lady Eve starring Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda. Fighting his way into the director’s chair…
