London Film Festival
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BFI London Film Festival 2012: ‘Hold Back’ review
★★☆☆☆ Just a few minutes into Rachid Djaidani’s fictional feature debut, two characters amble down a street and one complains to the other that in cinematic terms “We do not innovate in France – we follow.” The story that then proceeds to unfold is a well worn tale, essentially a re-imagining of Romeo and Juliet,…
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BFI London Film Festival 2012: ‘In the Fog’ review
★★★☆☆ Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa returns to the London Film Festival with Cannes Palme d’Or nominee In the Fog (V tumane, 2012), a sombre wartime drama set in Belarus at the time of the Nazi occupation. The film begins with the execution of three local men, hung by the Germans for sabotage. We then move…
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BFI London Film Festival 2012: ‘Dormant Beauty’ review
★★☆☆☆ Marco Bellocchio has often used real-life dramatic Italian events as the backdrop to his films. Good Morning, Night (2003) dealt with the Aldo Moro kidnapping in the 1970s, whilst Vincere (2009) focused on Mussolini’s lover Ida Dalsa. Dormant Beauty (Bella Addormentata, 2012) revolves around the story of Eluana Englaro, a young woman who lived…
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BFI London Film Festival 2012: ‘Horses of God’ review
★★★★☆ Set in a slum on the outskirts of Casablanca, Horses of God (Les Chevaux de Dieu, 2012) is a powerful drama based on the events leading up to the Moroccan suicide bomb attacks of 16 May, 2003. The film’s director, Nabil Ayouch, has crafted an original and moving adaptation of Mahi Binebine’s novel The…
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BFI London Film Festival 2012: ‘Paradise: Love’ review
★★★☆☆ Michael Haneke has made a career out of misanthropic, if brilliant grumpiness, yet it seems fellow Austrian director Ulrich Seidl is making a good fist of competing for him in the line of stern, unflinching gazes at the darker side of humanity. Import/Export screened at the London Film Festival back in 2007 and featured…
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BFI London Film Festival 2012: ‘It Was the Son’ review
★★☆☆☆ Based on a novel by Roberto Alaimo, It Was the Son (È stato il figlio, 2012) director Daniele Ciprì – who has previously made his name as a cinematographer work for such acclaimed filmmakers as Marco Bellocchio – gives a visually imaginative look to his new feature, utilising a stylish sheen similar in the…
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BFI London Film Festival 2012: ‘After Lucía’ review
★★★★☆ Screening at this year’s London Film Festival is After Lucía (Después de Lucía, 2012), Mexico’s official submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar at next year’s Academy Awards and Michel Franco’s deeply harrowing follow-up to Daniel & Ana (2009). Franco’s latest is a captivating, if not quite tortuous expose of school-yard bullying, told…
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BFI London Film Festival 2012: ‘West of Memphis’ review
★★★☆☆ In 1994, three US teens were convicted of the murder of three children in the state of Memphis, with the authorities believing the deaths to be related to a series of satanic rituals. Over a decade later, new forensic evidence was presented that suggested that the men were wrongly convicted. This lengthy battle for…
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BFI London Film Festival 2012: ‘The Loves of Pharaoh’ review
★★★☆☆ When Howard Carter discovered King Tutankhamen’s tomb back in 1922, a sensation swept the entire European continent, resulting in a great deal of public fascination towards all things Ancient Egyptian. It would be tempting to compare this discovery to the restoration of Ernst Lubitsch’s The Loves of Pharaoh (thought lost for many years), but…
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LFF 2012: ‘Shell’ review
★★★★☆ Edinburgh’s loss, it appears, is London’s gain with the festival ensnaring Scott Graham’s superb Shell (2012), a beautifully rendered, incredibly haunting example of gritty British cinema concocted by a refreshing fusion of intelligence and artistic refinement. Set within the sparse, yet desolately beautiful countryside of the Scottish Highlands, Shell (Chloe Pirrie) is a 17-year-old…