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...
Film Reviews & More
Most Recent. In John Bleasdale.
6 September 2024
Film Review: Firebrand
★★☆☆☆ “An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,” Percy Shelley once wrote in his sonnet England in 1819. He was firing his barbs at King George III but the words could just as well be used for any number of English monarchs including Henry VIII.
26 July 2024
Film Review: About Dry Grasses
★★★★★ Turkish master director Nuri Bilge Ceylan returns to the Cannes Croisette with About Dry Grasses, a wonderful wintry meditation on male fragility and the way we often make our own hells and then deceive ourselves that we’re trapped.
21 June 2024
Film Review: Green Border
★★★★☆ From sub-Saharan Africa to Afghanistan, Syria to Iraq and Iran, the climate crisis, drought, war, and oppression has created a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. It is treated as an ethical conundrum, but it isn’t. Either we wish to save those who are in danger of dying, or all our talk of human rights is just so much hot air. This is the core concern of Green Border.
John Bleasdale
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...
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...
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...
BFI London Film Festival 2012: ‘Gimme the Loot’ review
★★★☆☆ Adam Leon’s Gimme the Loot (2012) is a brisk and refreshingly jolly look at life on the streets of New York from the...
BFI London Film Festival 2012: ‘The Sapphires’ review
★★★☆☆ Wayne Blair’s musical comedy The Sapphires (2012), one of the Gala screenings at this year’s London Film Festival, tells the (apparently true) story...
BFI London Film Festival 2012: ‘In Another Country’ review
★★☆☆☆ In competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, South Korean director Hong Sang-soo returns with In Another Country (2012), a carefully crafted, slight...
BFI London Film Festival 2012: ‘Broken’ review
★★★☆☆ Rufus Norris’ debut Broken (2012), an adaptation of the Daniel Clay novel, presents a portrait of three families living in a British cul-de-sac...
