Film
Powell and Pressburger: the glueman comethSaturday, 11 November 2023
The shop assistant turned World War Two Land Army girl Alison Smith, clad in a summer dress on the sabbath, steps through a glade onto a hilltop track above the village of Chillingbourne in Kent. It’s the same road once taken by medieval... Read more... |
Anatomy of a Fall review - gripping psychological thriller set in the French AlpsFriday, 10 November 2023
There’s a splinter of ice in the heart of a writer, said Graham Greene, and that ice plays a part in French director Justine Triet’s superb fourth feature, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes.Set in the French Alps, the film begins with successful... Read more... |
A Forgotten Man review - Switzerland's WW2 record haunts monochrome dramaFriday, 10 November 2023
Switzerland isn’t exactly famous for parading its history during WWII. Remaining neutral from the conflict like its neighbour Liechtenstein, the Swiss benefitted from financial and armament deals with Nazi Germany, turned away Jewish refugees... Read more... |
Rustin review - a doubly liberated American lifeSunday, 05 November 2023
This is a tribute to a forgotten hero, gay black Quaker Bayard Rustin (Colman Domingo), driving force behind the 1963 March on Washington, the vast peaceful protest that sanctified Martin Luther King as his oratory seemed to lift black America... Read more... |
On the Adamant review - moving French documentary focusing on mental healthSaturday, 04 November 2023
On the Adamant is an endearing documentary by the French director Nicolas Philibert, best known here for his 2003 film, Être et Avoir, a portrait of a single-room school in the Auvergne.This time around, Philbert has placed his... Read more... |
Dance First - the travails of Samuel BeckettSaturday, 04 November 2023
Dance First takes its title from a line in Samuel Beckett’s most famous work Waiting for Godot. “Perhaps he could dance first and think afterwards,” says the tramp Estragon of Pozzo’s slave Lucky, who then proceeds to do both in a typically absurd... Read more... |
How to Have Sex review - compelling journey of a vulnerable teenFriday, 03 November 2023
Molly Manning Walker surprised herself by winning the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes this year with her rites-of-passage feature, How to Have Sex. Why the surprise? It’s a compelling debut.For the first five minutes, you might decide you won’t... Read more... |
The Royal Hotel review - sexual malice in AustraliaThursday, 02 November 2023
The jitters-inducing first feature directed on home soil by the Australian filmmaker Kitty Green is named after The Royal Hotel, the only pub in an Outback mining community removed from civilised society. To suggest all the blokes who drink there... Read more... |
Powell and Pressburger: Spy mastersTuesday, 31 October 2023
Alfred Hitchcock and Michael Powell are, almost certainly, Britain’s greatest directors. Hitchcock was slightly older, and entered the film business earlier; in fact, Powell worked as a stills photographer on Hitchcock’s Champagne and... Read more... |
Beyond Utopia review - harrowing escape stories vividly captured with live footageTuesday, 31 October 2023
If Madeleine Gavin’s Beyond Utopia doesn’t make you cry, you’re a hard nut to crack. The film records the fortunes of defectors fleeing North Korea, a hell hole that is more like a prison camp than a country.The phone rings with news that a family... Read more... |
Blu-ray: After HoursTuesday, 31 October 2023
Not all Scorsese films are behemoths; Killers of the Flower Moon may last over three hours but After Hours, a low-budget black comedy released in 1983, packs an incredible amount into just 93 minutes.That Scorsese directed the film at all is a happy... Read more... |
Fanny: The Other Mendelssohn review - a tale of two siblingsMonday, 30 October 2023
Documentaries intended for cinema release don’t always come off, and cynics might suggest that Sheila Hayman’s Fanny: The Other Mendelssohn would work perfectly well as a BBC Radio 3 broadcast. Fortunately, Hayman’s visual flourishes and a sense of... Read more... |
