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Film and Foreign

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La Antena

The Aerial (La Antena)

(3 stars)22 May 2008

SILENT/SATIRE (12A) 90min Argentinean writer and director Esteban Sapir utilises the syntax of classic silent cinema to winning effect in this amusing and inventive futuristic adventure. Set in some Orwellian style future city where words and language…

California Dreamin’ (Endless)

California Dreamin’ (Endless)

(4 stars)22 May 2008

DRAMA/COMEDY (15) 154min Tragically Cristian Nemescu, the 27 year-old writer-director of California Dreamin’ died in a car crash whilst working on the post-production of this richly ambitious film (together with his sound designer Andrei Toncu), hence…

Change of Address

Change of Address

(2 stars)22 May 2008

French horn teacher David (Emmanuel Mouret) is improbably picked up by impulsive Anne (Frédérique Bel). She convinces him to come and live in her small Parisian flat. These oddballs are obviously perfect for each other but in denial of this fact they…

Jade Warrior

Jade Warrior

(2 stars)22 May 2008

MYTH/ROMANCE (12) 100min (Yume) This potentially fascinating attempt to combine two mythologies: ancient Chinese martial arts with Finnish legend, The Kalevala is, as the blurb tell us, ‘the first ever Finnish martial arts film’. May it also be the…

Heartbeat Detector

Heartbeat Detector

(3 stars)8 May 2008

DRAMA (12A) 135min Visually spare, leisurely in pace, wordy and featuring an eclectic, occasionally jarring soundtrack, this French corporate thriller is demanding and rewarding in equal measure. Adapted from François Emmanuel’s novel La Question…

XXY

(4 stars)8 May 2008

DRAMA (15) 90min What would you do if your only child was a hermaphrodite? Would you let this anomaly of nature lie or would you welcome the intervention of major surgery? This is the dilemma at the centre of Argentinean screenwriter Lucía Puenzo’s…

The Last Mistress

The Last Mistress

(4 stars)8 May 2008

DRAMA (15) 114min Despite suffering a cerebral haemorrhage in 2004, the French filmmaker Catherine Breillat has returned with her most entertaining and accessible work to date. Based on the 19th century novel by the controversial writer Jules-Amédée…

Caramel

Caramel

(4 stars)8 May 2008

DRAMA (PG) 95min Dedicated ‘to my Beirut’, the charming, bitter-sweet debut feature of writer-director Nadine Labaki centres upon the ‘Si Belle’ beauty parlour in the Lebanese capital. The 30-year-old proprietor Layale (Labaki herself) is guiltily…

Under the Bombs

Under the Bombs

(3 stars)8 May 2008

DRAMA/ROMANCE (15) 98min This heartfelt road movie from Lebanese writer-director Philippe Aractingi was filmed during Israel’s 33-day bombardment of Lebanon in the summer of 2006. It follows a wealthy Shiite woman Zeina (Nada Abou Farhat) and a…

Welcome to the Sticks

(2 stars)8 May 2008

COMEDY (12A) 106min Dany Boon’s box-office hit is the most successful French movie of all time. In just seven weeks on release, it broke 1966 comedy La Grande Vadrouille’s record for the highest ever attendance for a French film on home soil with 17…

I’m A Cyborg, But That’s Ok

I’m A Cyborg, But That’s Ok

(4 stars)24 Apr 2008

SCI-FI (15) 105 min Korean director Park Chan-wook burst onto the international film scene with the ferocious Oldboy in 2003. The bleak and violent study of revenge was very publicly championed by Quentin Tarantino. However, after the unrelenting…

Beaufort

Beaufort

(3 stars)24 Apr 2008

WAR/ACTION/DRAMA (15) 125min The Beaufort of the title refers to a castle built by the Crusaders during the 12th century in southern Lebanon. In 2000 this mountaintop fortress is occupied by IDF (Israeli Defence Force) troops, who are preparing to…

Marcello Mastroianni

Film Season - Marcello Mastroianni

10 Apr 2008

The son of a carpenter, Mastroianni trained as a draughtsman and served time in a Nazi labour camp during the war. Upon his release, he became involved in amateur dramatics. He made his film début in Riccardo Fredda’s I Miserabili (1948) and, at around…

[REC]

[REC]

(4 stars)10 Apr 2008

HORROR (18) 85 min Pan’s Labyrinth and The Orphanage have proved that Spain is a hotbed of horror talent whose filmmakers can strike a chord overseas. [REC] easily joins these ranks (it already has an American remake, Quarantine, scheduled). Yet…

Naked Youth

Naked Youth

10 Apr 2008

TEEN DRAMA (15) 97min (Yume DVD retail) As Noel Burch in his key tome on Japanese cinema, To The Distant Observer, has noted, the disaffected youth film was popular in the aspirant years of the late 50s and early 60s. This film, Nagisa Oshima’s 1960…

My Brother is an Only Child

My Brother is an Only Child

(3 stars)27 Mar 2008

DRAMA (15) 103min It is sometimes worth remembering that there was a time of passion and politics in Europe before mass consumerism and cultural deception helped nullify and stupefy the general populace. This nostalgic idea runs through Antonio…

You, the Living

You, the Living

(3 stars)27 Mar 2008

COMEDY/DRAMA (15) 93min In an unnamed Nordic city a moustachioed tuba-player starts talking about savings and pensions, while making love to his wife who is wearing a military helmet. A dog is dragged along a pavement, attached to the walker of its…

Coup De Torchon

Coup De Torchon

(3 stars)27 Mar 2008

THRILLER (15) 123min (Optimum DVD retail) Adapted from a Jim Thompson novel by Bertrand Tavernier, this loose adaptation shows local police officer Lucien Cordier (Philippe Noiret) in an African colony in 1938 inefficiently doing his job while being…

The Boss Of It All

The Boss Of It All

(3 stars)13 Mar 2008

Taking a break from vituperative deconstructions of US history, the ever playful Danish director, writer and producer Lars Von Trier brings us a comedy shot in Automavision, a process whereby the director chooses a fixed camera position and then allows…

Back To Normandy

Back To Normandy

(4 stars)13 Mar 2008

DOCUMENTARY (12A) 113min For this quietly compelling, multilayered documentary, French filmmaker Nicholas Philibert (Etre et Avoir) returned to the same Normandy agricultural community where, some 30 years earlier, he had served as an assistant…

Flight of the Red Balloon

Flight of the Red Balloon

(3 stars)13 Mar 2008

DRAMA (PG) 113min Taiwanese New Wave cinema pioneer Hou Hsiao-hsien makes his French language debut with this eloquent drama loosely inspired by Albert Lamorisse’s much-loved 1956 short, The Red Balloon. Taking as its starting point that film’s…

Water Lilies (Naissance Des Pieuvres)

Water Lilies (Naissance Des Pieuvres)

(3 stars)13 Mar 2008

DRAMA (15) 83min The literal translation of this film’s French title is ‘Birth of Octopuses’, which is a far more apt description of how the growing pains of a trio of 15-year-old girls translate into arrogance and sexual confusion. Set in a new…

Allan Moyle

Allan Moyle - The Cold High

15 Nov 2007

Filmmaker Allan Moyle is beaming across the table at me: ‘I loved your movie!’ Sensing my confusion he continues: ‘The movie – your movie! Trainspotting!’ Unable to discern the distinction between my Glaswegian accent and the Edinburgh-based epic, he…

DVD Roundup

DVD Roundup

15 Nov 2007

‘No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees/No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds!’ That’s how English poet and humourist Thomas Hood chose to describe the month of November. There is some of Hood’s cheeky sense of observation in John Waters: This…

Blame it on Fidel!

Blame it on Fidel!

(3 stars)15 Nov 2007

Paris in the early 1970s and nine-year-old Anna de La Mesa (Nina Kervel) is having problems coming to terms with her radical political activist parents. Her Spanish-born lawyer father Fernando (Stefano Accorsi) and journalist/writer mother Marie (Julie…

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