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Venice 2017: West of Sunshine review
★★☆☆☆ Showing in the Horizons sidebar at Venice, Jason Raftopoulos’ debut film West of Sunshine is a day in the life of Jim (Damien Hill), an inveterate gambler who somehow has to come up with the money to see off his bookie while at the same time looking after his son.Gamblers, like alcoholics, are a…
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Film Review: This Is Congo
★★★★☆ Daniel McCabe’s documentary is at times lyrical, at times shocking, frequently eye-opening and constantly fascinating. It’s an honest attempt to not only show that ‘this is Congo’, but also to ask the all-important question: how did the DRC fall into such disrepair? “To grow up as a child in Congo, according to God’s will,…
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Venice 2017: Human Flow review
★★★★☆ Receiving its world premiere at Venice, dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei crosses borders with his wide-ranging documentary Human Flow, an angry and compassionate witnessing of what looks like being the greatest man-made tragedy of our times.“No one leaves home lightly,” says a female refugee from Iraq. “You suffer hardship just to get to safety.”…
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Venice 2017: The Insult review
★★★☆☆ In Lebanese-born director Ziad Doueiri’s The Insult, an apparently minor argument on a Beirut street escalates into a full-blown legal battle, which itself threatens to erupt into civil violence as it rips open the festering wounds of historic religious and national resentment. Tony Hana (Adel Karam) is a mechanic living in an apartment with…
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Film Review: First Reformed
★★★★☆ Legendary screenwriter (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull) and director (Mishima, Cat People) Paul Schrader returns to form with a startling, sombre and quite extraordinary Bergman-esque portrait of a priest tortured by his own personal demons. “I’m God’s lonely man,” Travis Bickle stated in Paul Schrader’s first script. Loneliness, desperation and guilt are seeded throughout his…
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Venice 2017: Nico, 1988 review
★★★☆☆ Opening the Horizons sidebar, Susanna Nicchiarelli’s Nico, 1988 is a biopic of the German songstress who found fame with The Velvet Underground. Danish singer and actress Trine Dyrholm plays the diva with verve and energy, in a portrait which is also something of a reevaluation.“Don’t call me Nico,” Christa Päffgen (Dyrholm) tells her manager…
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Film Review: Downsizing
★★★★☆ Alexander Payne returns to cinemas this week with Downsizing, a surreal sci-fi comedy starring Matt Damon, Hong Chau and Kristen Wiig, which posits a revolutionary new technology that can shrink people as a way of reducing environmental damage. Following a discovery in a Norwegian laboratory, a new drug is released which allows for the…
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Film Review: Patti Cake$
★★★★☆ Patti Cake$ is an inspiring film full of heart and with a banging soundtrack. Chronicling an underdog’s quest for fame, this isn’t so much about one person’s success as it is about overcoming adversity in the pursuit of happiness.Patricia Dombrowski AKA Killa P. AKA Patti Cake$ is a young working-class woman living in Bergen…
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Film Review: Moon Dogs
★★☆☆☆ As with most road trip movies, the journey undertaken by quarreling step-brothers Michael (Jack Parry Jones) and Thor (Christy O’Donnell) and lost soul Caitlin (Tara Lee) in Phillip John’s coming-of-ager Moon Dogs is of greater significance than their destination.A cliché, yes, but apt nonetheless for a voyage of discovery from the far reaches of…
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Film Review: London Symphony
★★★★☆ Independent filmmaker Alex Barrett has documented the mundanity and the beauty of city life in his silent film London Symphony, a conscious callback to those films of the 1920s which sought to capture the rhythms and experiences of a modern urban existence.The film is divided into four movements which correspond to a gorgeous symphonic…
VENICE 2026
