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The King of Pigs
25 Jan 2013
Korean adult animation with a thought-provoking storyline and great attention to detail
The first feature from award-winning shorts director Yeon Sang-ho has a visual look reminiscent of a Studio Ghibli production allied to a narrative in the classic film noir manner. Bankrupt businessman Hwang Kyung-min murders his wife and then reaches…
The Punk Syndrome
25 Jan 2013
Music documentary following Finnish punk outsiders Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät
A sleeper hit on the film festival circuit, The Punk Syndrome follows the trials and tribulations of Finland’s Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät, a punk band whose members have learning disabilities and their rise in popularity within the local crust-punk scene…
A preview of the Edinburgh Iranian Festival 2013
23 Jan 2013
The festival brings together film, music, visual art, and comedy in the shape of Patrick Monahan
When you mention Iran in the current climate, most people think of the politics of the country. But there is of course more to the place than what we see in the news – and the 2013 Edinburgh Iranian Festival is our opportunity to learn more about…
Bullhead
21 Jan 2013
Rust and Bone's Matthias Schoenaerts shines in this slightly muddled Belgian crime drama
Fans of Jacques Audiard’s Rust and Bone will be keen to see that film’s impressive male lead Matthias Schoenaerts again, and this Belgian drama (its homeland’s Oscar entry) gives him plenty to chew on. As Jacky, an underworld hustler and supplier of…
No
15 Jan 2013
Gael Garcia Bernal stars in this indecisive historical drama about Chile under Pinochet
With elements of Mad Men and Wag the Dog accompanying its diligent examination of a country in the throes of change, this fact-based Chilean drama focuses upon the role played by marketeers in the 1988 referendum that heralded the end of the 15-year…
Dabangg 2
3 Jan 2013
Enjoyable Bollywood action sequel starring Salman Khan and Kareena Kapoor
Dabangg, released in 2010, introduced us to hyper-macho super-cop Chulbul Pandey (Salman Khan), a sharply dressed unorthodox policeman living and working in rural northern India. The sequel, produced and directed by Arbaaz Khan (who also stars in both…
Hors Satan
21 Dec 2012
Contemplative religious drama from Bruno Dumont, director of Hadewijch
For an avowedly atheistic director, the uncompromising French auteur Bruno Dumont seems strangely fascinated by questions of religious faith and the mysterious workings of grace. Following on from Hadewijch, a provocative examination of contemporary…
Apocalypse Archives: Deepa Mehta, director of Midnight's Children
18 Dec 2012
The Indo-Canadian filmmaker picks the films she'd save at the end of the world
Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray, 1955) Sheer cinematic poetry. It was the birth of a new Indian cinema. It is a simple, essential narrative told through the eyes of a small boy. Ray gives such beauty and poignancy to the simple and ordinary…
Forbidden Games
13 Dec 2012
DVD release of Rene Clement's beautiful but melancholy film sheds light on the director's career
Despite picking up an Oscar (Best Foreign Language Film), a BAFTA and the Golden Lion in Venice on release in 1952, Forbidden Games has slipped off the radar. It’s unsurprising in some ways as it’s a beautiful but melancholy film. Fleeing war torn…
Midnight's Children
11 Dec 2012
A solid, middlebrow adaptation of Salman Rushdie's love-letter to India
Salman Rushdie's Booker Prize-winning novel is a love letter to India, forgiving its flaws and celebrating its hopes. Deepa Mehta's meandering, soft-centred screen version favours sentimental soap-opera but gradually gains in emotional power as it…
Love Crime
5 Dec 2012
An elegant psychological thriller starring Kristin Scott Thomas and Ludivine Sagnier
If Neil La Bute ever remakes Working Girl it might look a little like Love Crime. The last film from director Alain Corneau, who died in 2010, Love Crime is a typically elegant psychological thriller plunging into the murky waters of ruthless ambition…
Tu seras mon fils (You Will Be My Son)
3 Dec 2012
A classy French family drama starring Niels Arestrup
This lush family drama builds tension as efficiently and cruelly as a thriller, but ballasts it with an undertow of deeply-felt emotion. The cast is also excellent: selected with a rigorous attention to the nuances of their roles, and hugely committed…
False Trail
3 Dec 2012
A well-paced and strongly acted Nordic crime drama
The popularity of Nordic noir shows little signs of abating and although False Trail is slightly more Lynda La Plante than Dragon Tattoo it is also a briskly efficient, smoothly executed murder mystery. The flamboyance and intensity that marked recent…
Starbuck
28 Nov 2012
Likeable but flawed comedy drama about a prolific sperm donor
David Wozniak (Patrick Huard) is a loser. He works – barely – at his dad’s butcher shop; he neglects his girlfriend Valerie (Julie LeBreton); he’s borrowed money from gangsters to start his own domestic pot farm, and is unable to pay it back. On top of…
Cinema Komunisto
22 Nov 2012
A slicky-produced documentary about Yugoslavian cinema that would have benefitted from wider context
As Yugoslavia came together as a new nation in the aftermath of World War 2, leader and confirmed film buff Josip Broz Tito fully embraced the power of film to help forge a new national identity. Initially his model for this endeavour came from his…
Alps
13 Nov 2012
Yorgos Lanthimos' Dogtooth follow-up retains that film's weird sensibility but lacks its wider focus
Having launched a new wave of bizarro Greek cinema (see also Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Attenberg) with his Oscar-nominated queasy black comedy Dogtooth, Yorgos Lanthimos returns with a follow up that’s just as absurdly idiosyncratic. The Alps of the…
The Pool
13 Nov 2012
A funny, sensitive drama delivered with grace, sincerity and charm by director Chris Smith
This likable little film has been on the shelf awaiting distribution for so long that it predates the bigger, flashier, somewhat similarly-themed Slumdog Millionaire: it first won prizes on the festival circuit way back in 2007. This is a bit of a…
Preview of French Film Festival 2012
13 Nov 2012
This year's festival will feature screenings of You Will Be My Son, Renoir and The Suicide Shop
Add some joie de vivre to your life by heading along to this year’s French Film Festival, which each year brings more Gallic cinema to the screens than you can shake a stick at. The 2012 programme includes a preview screening of You Will Be My Son, the…
Profile: Yorgos Lanthimos, director of Alps
1 Nov 2012
The Greek filmmaker is also the man behind comedy drama Dogtooth
Born Athens, Greece, 1973 Background Having studied at film school in Athens, Lanthimos made his debut feature with My Best Friend in 2001. It was his third feature Dogtooth however, a bizarre black comedy about an upper-class Greek couple who try…
Caesar Must Die
22 Oct 2012
Compelling version of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, filmed with the inmates of Rome’s Rebibbia jail
Veteran filmmakers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani craft a compelling version of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in Caesar Must Die, which won the Golden Bear award at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. The twist here is that the performance takes place within…
Sister
9 Oct 2012
Utterly absorbing drama about fractured family relationships
Swiss-French filmmaker Ursula Meier follows her feature debut, the tragic-comic domestic drama Home, with another leftfield story about a family in dysfunction. In this case, it’s a family of two comprising a 12-year-old boy named Simon (Kacey Mottet…
In the House (Dans La Maison)
9 Oct 2012
Fascinating new offering from French filmmaker Francois Ozon.
A sparkling and superbly acted black comedy, Francois Ozon’s In the House is a fascinating companion piece to Ian McEwan’s new novel Sweet Tooth, in its exploration of both creating and consuming fiction. The wonderfully deadpan Fabrice Luchini plays…
Reality
9 Oct 2012
Magic realist drama from Gomorrah director Matteo Garrone
Meet Luciano (Aniello Arena), a Neapolitan fish-seller and minor scam artist. Encouraged by his wife Maria (Loredana Simioli), three children and extended family, he enters the local try-outs for the popular reality TV series Grande Fratelli (Big…
Rust and Bone
3 Oct 2012
Thought-provoking drama from the director of A Prophet, starring Marion Cotillard
Expectations are high when it comes to a new Jacques Audiard film, for the simple reason that on the building evidence of his last three films Read My Lips, The Beat That My Heart Skipped and A Prophet, he might be the best writer/director currently…
Thaandavam
2 Oct 2012
Overlong masala movie starring Vikram, Amy Jackson and Santhanam
Kenny Thomas (Tamil superstar Vikram) is a blind man leading a double existence: by day he plays the organ at a rural Kentish church; by night he uses echolocation to assassinate targets in London. His life becomes more complicated with the intrusion of…
