LFF 2013: ‘Story of My Death’ review
★★★☆☆ Winner of the Golden Leopard at this year’s Locarno Film Festival, Albert Serra’s mischievous period drama Story of my Death (2013) depicts the...
Film Reviews & More
Most Recent. In Patrick Gamble.
14 April 2023
Film Review: Three Colours Trilogy
★★★★★ Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colours Trilogy stars Juliette Binoche, Julie Delpy and Irene Jacob in three of the most revered pieces of European cinema ever made. Named after the colours of the French flag (Blue, White and Red), the films are loosely based on the three political ideals of the French Republic; Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.
23 August 2022
Sarajevo 2022: Our festival highlights
The Sarajevo Film Festival has a history of resilience, so it was hardly surprising to see it come back stronger than ever after two years of Covid restrictions. Founded in 1995, the festival is now the leading industry event in south-east Europe, showcasing the very best films from across the Balkan peninsula.
22 October 2020
Film Review: Cinema Paradiso
★★★★☆ A major contributor to the reverential narrative of wistful cinema, Giuseppe Tornatore’s magnum opus Cinema Paradiso is an elegant distillation of the form’s...
Patrick Gamble
LFF 2013: ‘Harmony Lessons’ review
★★★★☆ A beautiful yet also vehemently hostile Darwinian drama set within the confines of a rural Kazakh school, Emire Baigazin’s Harmony Lessons (2013) is...
Film Review: ‘The Fifth Estate’
★★☆☆☆ Ripped from newspaper headlines that are still fresh in the memory, Bill Condon’s The Fifth Estate (2013) is a studio-financed, heavily dramatised account...
DVD Review: ‘Siberian Education’
★★☆☆☆ John Malkovich plays a menacing Russian kingpin in Oscar-winning director Gabriele Salvatores’ Siberian Education (2013). Based on the memoirs of gangster turned gallery-owner...
DVD Review: ‘Citadel’
★★☆☆☆ Council estates are gradually replacing graveyards as the setting of choice for contemporary horrors, whilst hooded teenagers are now the zombies of the...
Film Review: ‘Prisoners’
★★☆☆☆ Incendies (2010) director Denis Villeneuve was once quoted as saying “In contradiction and paradox, you can find truth.” However, in the case of...
DVD Review: ‘From Up on Poppy Hill’
★★★☆☆ Directed by Goro Miyazaki, son of Studio Ghibli figurehead Hayao Miyazaki, From Up on Poppy Hill (2011) is a delightful coming-of-age drama, made...
DVD Review: Uwantme2killhim
★★☆☆☆ A social networking period drama (if there is such a thing), Andrew Douglas’ Uwantme2killhim? (2013) is based loosely on a true story that...
