Tony McKibbin

The Battle of the Somme

11 Dec 2008

(E) 74min Originally released in 1916, right in the middle of World War I, this important documentary might not be known to viewers in its entirety, but individual moments will probably be familiar: its images are regularly ransacked for various…

The Vital Life - Agnès Varda Retrospective

9 Jun 2010

Agnès Varda, now eighty two, is a great vitalist but hardly a facile optimist. Her films are infused with the importance of life, but death frequently hovers over her work. In Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962), at the beginning of the film a fortune teller…

The Last Thakur

4 Dec 2009

(15) 83min (Artificial Eye) This Bangladeshi Western directed by British filmmaker Sadik Ahmed is a clumsily realised tale of Oedipal tensions. The film focuses on Kala, a young man visiting a small town determined to find out who raped his mother.

Afghan film festival

14 Feb 2008

FESTIVAL For exasperated introductions to the complexities of Afghanistan’s political situation it is difficult to beat Atiq Rahini’s (A)fghanistan: An Impossible State. Rahini simply allows the attending members of a loya jirga (political gathering…

Bombay Beach

Half real, half dream-like American documentary from director Alma Har'el

23 Jan 2012

(Cert tbc) 80min There was a time when documentary at least generally gave the impression of being a medium distinct from fiction, where various movements (Direct Cinema, cinema verité) put their faith in the relative objectivity of the image, as…

The Tree

Psychological drama starring Charlotte Gainsbourg is a fine study of loss

29 Jul 2011

(12A) 100min It seems trees are the new black: Terrence Malick wins the Palme d’Or with The Tree of Life, Win Win shows the central character’s life on track as he finally takes down the tree outside his garden, and La Quattro Volte gives a tree a…

Enter The Void

17 Sep 2010

(18) 142min Argentine/French filmmaker Gaspar Noé (I Stand Alone, Irreversible) has proven both his amazing vision and his impoverished sensibility with his past forays into feature filmmaking. His latest is a metaphysical movie offered from the…

The Island

Well-told Russian fable of spirituality and guilt

23 Jul 2010

(PG) 150min (Artificial Eye) The spirit of Andrei Tarkovsky hovers over Russian cinema maybe more than any other director, perhaps quite aptly for one so given to the spiritual himself. The Island opens with a horrible moment of human weakness.

The Pope's Toilet (El Baño del Papa)

4 Sep 2008

DRAMA (EL BANO DEL PAPA) (15) 98min Like the recent Couscous, The Pope’s Toilet works up a great deal of narrative tension out of what are very believable anxieties. Its strength is that it generates a plot out of real life and real concerns.

Eat, For This is My Body

Edinburgh International Film Festival

19 Jun 2008

(Michelange Quay, Haiti/France) 105min Quay’s semi-abstract look at colonial elements in Haiti is comparable to two 1980s touchstones, Marion Hänsel’s Dust and Claire Denis’ Chocolat. While there is an impressive opening shot that glides over the…

Perth

1 Aug 2007

The title isn’t where this Singapore film is set; it’s simply the city in Australia that our central character dreams of moving to, a place without the corruption and poverty of his immediate surroundings.

Seminal Souls - Antonioni and Bergman in the 21st century

A look at the significance of Michelangelo Antonioni and Ingmar Bergman

26 Apr 2012

Dying within twenty four hours of each other, the demise of two great filmmakers in 2007 was clearly a loss, but though Ingmar Bergman came out of retirement to make Saraband in 2002, and Antonioni made one feature, Beyond the Clouds (and a later short…

The music and film collaborations of Tindersticks and Claire Denis

The creative partnership between the French director and the UK band

21 Oct 2011

Just as there are actors directors consistently work with, and where the French have a term called the acteur/actrice fétiche to define this affiliation, equally there are plenty filmmakers whose relationship with their composers seem equally…

Cutter's Way - Re-release of 1981 film starring Jeff Bridges

Study in decorum and ethos is a lost classic and 70s swan song

12 Oct 2011

In an early scene in 1981’s Cutter’s Way, the bronzed Richard Bone (Jeff Bridges) gets out of bed and we see the ripple of a six-pack as his stomach hits the light. Shortly afterwards we see his old friend, Alex Cutter (John Heard), a Vietnam veteran…

Film Socialisme

Jean-Luc Godard tells story of Europe in decline

29 Jul 2011

(PG) 101min Jean-Luc Godard’s Film Socialisme is about as difficult a film as you’ll see this or any other year, but if some will conclude the film is unwatchable, it might be useful to say why that is so, why it may even be partly intentional on…

Flesh Of The Orchid (La Chair De L’Orchidee)

12 Jan 2011

(18) 120min (Bluebell) Charlotte Rampling rarely takes an easy role and this 1975 adaptation of a James Hadley Chase novel is no exception. She is Claire, a runaway heiress and it’s the asylum she is running away from. Taking up with big and bulky…

Tropic of Cancer

14 Dec 2010

(18) 87min (Olive Films) Available on DVD for the first time, this is the 1970 adaptation of Henry Miller’s novel set at the end of the 1960s rather than the 1930s when the book was originally published. It nevertheless captures the irreverence of…

The Viva Cuba Collection

14 Dec 2010

(12) 680min (Network) Back in the 1960s there was mighty Cuban filmmaking wave. Filmmakers Tomás Guttiérez Alea and Humberto Solás became internationally significant filmmakers whilst reflecting the social values espoused by Castro’s government.

Room In Rome (Habitacion En Roma)

Julio Medem continues exploration of sexuality, but delivers emptiest film yet

22 Nov 2010

(18) 103min (Optimum) Two women, one gay, Alba (Elena Anaya), the other the heterosexual Natasha (Natasha Yarovenko) have an overnight fling in a Rome hotel room, talk about their pasts and prepare for their future. Director Julio Medem continues…

Lovely Rita

Jessica Hausner’s 2001 account of small town family life

22 Nov 2010

(15) 80min (Artificial Eye) Obviously less polished than her later work (Hotel, Lourdes), Jessica Hausner’s 2001 account of a teenager’s stultifying small town family life in Austria is easily reflected in the flat images, in the overly even and…

The Hunter

2 Nov 2010

(15) 92min After making a documentary about wild and crazy man of US cinema Abel Ferrara in 2003, Iranian filmmaker Rafi Pitts went on to make the spare and contained drama It’s Winter, a fable-like account of someone who goes off to find work and…

Hotel

Austrian drama brings out cold emptiness of a spiritless world

2 Nov 2010

(15) 74 min (Artificial Eye) Jessica Hausner shows the same eerie sense of place as she would show in her recent Lourdes, a gaze that makes simple details stand out in all their bland terror. As Irene (Franziska Weisz) takes a job as a desk clerk in…

An exploration of Hong Sang-soo's films ahead of Edinburgh Filmhouse season

Tony McKibbin examines the relationship dynamic in Korean filmmaker's celebrated films

28 Oct 2010

Hong Sangsoo films often focus on characters so in crisis that they cannot help but generate crises in the very situations they find themselves in. They are not only crisis-ridden; they create a mise-en-scene of misery out of their own inability to…

Take One Action film festival showcases best in political cinema

Budrus, Nero’s Guests and Sweet Crude among highlights of 2010

23 Sep 2010

Take One Action! should have enough films in their 2010 programme to get the most politically slothful citizen socially activated. The film Budrus focuses on small actions leading to big results, with villagers in the little titular town taking things…

Take One Action Film Festival 2010

Sweet Crude, Climate Refugees and Budrus among highlights

22 Sep 2010

Now in its third year, the Take One Action! Film Festival offers a rare opportunity to watch activist documentaries and politically-orientated films at the cinema. This excellent festival concentrates on the agenda-setting and eco-documentary sub-genres…