Harriet Warman
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DVD Review: ‘In Their Room’
★★★★☆ For their 2013 collaboration, Interior. Leather Bar, Travis Mathews and James Franco worked on the premise of a reimagining the lost 40 minutes of William Friedkin’s 1980 film Cruising – cut by censors who deemed it too explicit. Rather than present the extent of their footage however, Mathews and Franco’s film appeared as more…
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Blu-ray Review: ‘Diary of a Lost Girl’
★★★★☆ A new restoration of G.W. Pabst’s 1929 masterpiece Diary of a Lost Girl, demonstrates the luminosity of his iconic star, Louise Brooks, in what was their final of two legendary collaborations, the other being Pandora’s Box in the same year. Having left Paramount studios to work for the celebrated German director in 1928, Brooks…
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Aesthetica Short Film Festival: Preview
Born from its namesake – the widely distributed art and culture magazine – and having doubled the number of films screening since their first edition in 2011, Aesthetica Short Film Festival returns to York from 6-9 November. Popping up in a plethora of the city’s contemporary and historic venues, it boasts a broad programme showcasing…
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Film Review: ‘In Order of Disappearance’
★★★★☆ The Norwegian protagonist of Hans Petter Moland’s In Order of Disappearance (2014), Nils Dickman (Stellan Skarsgård), is a plough operator by profession, steadily carving a path towards his destination. It’s perhaps this occupational characteristic that best explains how such a man can turn from a respectable ‘citizen of the year’ into a vengeful vigilante.…
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DVD Review: ‘We Are the Best!’
★★★★☆ Coco Moodysson’s autobiographical 2008 graphic novel Never Goodnight related the delight and difficultly of forming a punk band, aged 13, in 1982. Along with two friends, and against the expectations of their peers and the adults around them, Moodysson created a dark and poignant tale of three friends who evince the spirit of punk…
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DVD Review: ‘Venus in Fur’
★★★☆☆ For Roman Polanski’s latest, the now octogenarian director has adapted David Ives play Venus in Fur, which is itself based on the 1870 novel of the same name by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. Taking place entirely in a theatre setting, the chamber piece sees a playwright, Thomas Novachek (Mathieu Amalric), who is directing his own…
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DVD Review: ‘The Rocket’
★★★☆☆ During the making of his 2007 film, Bomb Harvest, director Kim Mordaunt was inspired by the experience of young people in Laos who make their living extracting for sale, the metal and explosives from bombs dropped during the ‘secret war’ in the 1960s-70s. That such a huge risk was taken by children just to…
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Edinburgh 2014: ‘What Now? Remind Me’ review
★★★★☆ Winner of the Locarno Film Festival’s Special Jury Prize last year (amongst a host of other accolades), 2013’s What Now? Remind Me (E Agora? Lembra-me) is a revealing self-portrait and memoir by Portuguese filmmaker Joaquim Pinto that emerges as a moving examination of an important subject – how to live your life well. With…
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Edinburgh 2014: Shorts strand review
★★★★★ Edinburgh Film Festival is renowned for showcasing the best new feature filmmaking talent and hosting premieres of new work by established directors, but what’s less well known is the outstanding shorts programmes, curated by Lydia Beilby and her team of programmers. Though the Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival is frequently referenced as the…
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Edinburgh 2014: ‘The Owners’ review
★★★☆☆ To watch Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s The Owners (2014) is to be struck by confusion. A seemingly tragic premise – three siblings (including an epileptic child) inherit their mother’s home only to be thrown out by the aggressive and/or indifferent locals – is interspersed with frivolous singing and dancing. The incongruity of pink vest wearing musical…