BFI London Film Festival 2011: ‘She Monkeys’
★★★★☆ Swedish director Lisa Aschan’s debut feature She Monkeys (2011) is a hormonally-charged coming-of-age drama, depicting the conflict between two teenage girls, and stars...
★★☆☆☆ “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.
★★★★★ 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.
★★★★☆ 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.
★★★★☆ With Luca Guadagnino’s terrific Challengers, the acclaimed director of Call Me By Your Name brings us the sub-genre we never knew we needed: the erotic tennis thriller.
★★☆☆☆ Directors Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett’s “Abigail” mashes up crime caper and monster movie, but fails to deliver fear or humor. Spoilery trailers and unoriginal characters overshadow promising elements, resulting in a dull, lifeless experience lacking creativity and wit.
★★☆☆☆ Maïwenn’s French period drama Jeanne du Barry is the perfect opening salvo for the 76th Cannes Film Festival. It is as glitzy and gaudy as the festival itself, with its vacuous politics drowned out by the thunderous sound of it slapping its own back.
★★★★☆ Swedish director Lisa Aschan’s debut feature She Monkeys (2011) is a hormonally-charged coming-of-age drama, depicting the conflict between two teenage girls, and stars...
★★☆☆☆ Director Jean-Marc Moutout returns to the BFI London Film Festival with Early One Morning (2011) – starring Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Valérie Dréville and Xavier...
★★★★☆ The third and final entry in the Dreileben trilogy, Christoph Hochhäusler’s Dreileben 3: One Minute of Darkness, finally gives centre stage to Stefan Kurts’...
★★★☆☆ The second film in the German Dreileben trilogy, Dominik Graf’s Dreileben 2: Don’t Follow Me Around (2011) is a very different creature to...
★★★★☆ Conceived from an extended email discussion on the current state of German cinema, the Dreileben trilogy brings together three of the nations finest...
★★★★☆ It’s tempting to say that Todd Solondz’s seventh feature, Dark Horse (2011) – starring Justin Bartha, Selma Blair and Zachary Booth – is...
★★★★☆ Intimate, earnest and heartfelt, Andrew Haigh’s Weekend (2011) – starring Tom Cullen and Chris New – is a refined and touching affair that...
★★★★☆ It may not be a world or even a European premiere, but the first showing of Hunger (2008) director Steve McQueen’s latest effort...