John Bleasdale
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LFF 2013: ‘Tracks’ review
★★★☆☆ In 1975, Robyn Davidson arrived in a remote Australian town with a crazy ambition to cross the desert to the ocean using wild camels – which she planned to capture and tame – to carry her supplies, accompanied by her faithful dog Diggity. Inspired as much by a dislike of people as a love…
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Blu-ray Review: ‘The Lonely Wife’ & ‘The Coward’
★★★★★ The years 1964-5 saw the release of Satyajit Ray’s arguable masterpiece The Lonely Wife (Charulata) and the smaller variation on a theme, The Coward (Kapurush), both now reissued in pristine Blu-ray versions by distributor Artificial Eye. Set in the closing years of the nineteenth century, The Lonely Wife tells the story of a privileged…
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Venice 2013: ‘Sacro GRA’ wins the Golden Lion
The Venice Golden Lion returned to the host country after fifteen years this evening with Gianfranco Rosi’s biography of a Rome ring road, Sacro GRA, picking up the festival’s top prize. Renowned director Bernardo Bertolucci and his jury plumped for high arthouse cinema over the more crowd-pleasing fare of Stephen Frears’ British offering Philomena, which…
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Venice 2013: ‘Memphis’ review
★★★☆☆ Timothy Sutton’s second film, Memphis (2013) – in show at this year’s Venice Film Festival – is a meditation into music, “God-given” talent and madness starring and scored by Willis Earl Beal. Beal, a fascinating compelling presence, is first seen looking a bit lost in a TV studio. “I thought it was going to…
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Venice 2013: ‘Stray Dogs’ review
★★☆☆☆ Tsai Ming-liang, joint-winner of the 1994 Golden Lion for Vive L’Amour, returns to Venice with new film Stray Dogs (2013), a motionless motion picture which may challenge even the hardiest arthouse advocates with its tale of a family living on the edge of poverty in Taiwan. Lee Kang-sheng plays a man living on the…
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Venice 2013: ‘The Sacrament’ review
★★☆☆☆ Part of a new generation of young horror directors, Ti West arrives in Venice with The Sacrament (2013), a found-footage frightener based loosely on the true events of the Jonestown Massacre of 1978. Updating the story, West has a trio of filmmakers – Sam (A.J. Bowen), Jake (Joe Swanberg) and Patrick (Kentucker Audley), from…
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Venice 2013: ‘Ruin’ review
★★★★☆ Showing in the Orizzonti sidebar at the 70th Venice Film Festival, Ruin (2013) is by turns a gritty and dazzling lovers-on-the-run tale set in modern day Cambodia. Directed by Michael Cody and Amiel Courtin-Wilson, the film tells the story of two of society’s worst-off down-and-outs. Sang Malen plays Sovanna, a young prostitute who is…
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Venice 2013: ‘Gravity’ review
★★★★★ The opening film of the 70th Venice Film Festival is Alfonso Cuaròn’s sci-fi blockbuster Gravity (2013), featuring Lido regular George Clooney and Sandra Bullock as two astronauts cast adrift in space when their shuttle is struck by satellite debris. Cuaròn has had something of a directing hiatus of late – his last film, Children…
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Venice 2013: ‘Jealousy’ review
★★★☆☆ Following the dreadful A Burning Hot Summer which showed in competition in 2011, Philippe Garrel returns to the Lido with Jealousy (La Jalousie, 2013), a modest relationship drama of love and betrayal. Garrel casts his son in the lead role of Louis, a struggling actor who we see splitting with his girlfriend and the…
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Venice 2013: ‘Ana Arabia’ review
★★★☆☆ No stranger to the Venice Lido, Amos Gitai’s new film Ana Arabia (2013) – in competition this year – is a quiet exploration of love and tolerance in Israel. On the border between Jaffa and Bat Jam exists a small dusty enclave of Arabs and Jews. A young reporter, Yael (Yuval Scharf), arrives to…
