Paris
Les MisérablesFriday, 11 January 2013
Les Misérables is revolutionary, but not in a French way. Oscar-winning director Tom (The King's Speech) Hooper’s film of a musical seen by over 60 million people in over 40 countries and in half again as many languages has engaged so much... Read more... |
La Bohème, Royal OperaTuesday, 18 December 2012
Rolando Villazón at 40 is back on reasonably stylish form, as far as the voice will allow him to go – which is not always up and volume-wise only just as far as the Covent Garden Balcony. John Copley’s Royal Opera Bohème is two years younger than... Read more... |
DVD: Fairy Tales, Early Colour Stencil Films From PathéFriday, 07 December 2012
Although it's impossible to place yourself in the shoes of audiences seeing these other-worldly short films at the dawn of the 20th century, the reaction they provoke now cannot be that different. Delight, surprise and then amazement. These films... Read more... |
Holy MotorsWednesday, 26 September 2012
Stop me if you know this one. What do you get if you combine Gallic absurdity with a pristine, pouting Eva Mendes and Kylie as a suicidal chanteuse? The answer, it turns out, is gloriously unpredictable entertainment – by turns satirical, melancholy... Read more... |
DVD: The Tango LessonTuesday, 18 September 2012
It's a brave director who not only plays herself but also sings and dances in a story based on real events. After obsessively cleaning her table, Sally Potter (Orlando) sits down to write the screenplay for a film called Rage. Inspiration comes in... Read more... |
DVD: EllesFriday, 17 August 2012
Elles promises much. Małgorzata Szumowska, from Poland, is an engaged, serious film maker. 33 Scenes from Life (2008), which won a Locarno special prize, had an edgy, bohemian authenticity to it, and looked with wry east European melancholy at the... Read more... |
In Your HandsFriday, 20 July 2012
You might wonder whether Kristin Scott Thomas is doing Paris arrondissement by arrondissement. Last time we saw her was in Pawel Pawlikowski’s The Woman in the Fifth, where she was reincarnated in that district. In Lola Doillon’s In Your Hands (... Read more... |
DVD: A Cat in ParisThursday, 19 July 2012
As a refreshing change from Disney-style hyper-tech 3D animated blockbusters, A Cat in Paris offers a modest story of adventure and intrigue on a pleasingly human, as well as feline, scale. The titular character is a faintly sinister black-and-... Read more... |
From Paris: A Taste for Impressionism, Royal AcademyFriday, 06 July 2012
As the clouds continue and the rain pours down, the Sackler Gallery at the Royal Academy is filled with sun-dappled scenes from France. The anthology is a potpourri of paintings culled from the remarkable collections put together by the millionaire... Read more... |
DVD: The Woman in the FifthFriday, 15 June 2012
The press release for The Woman in the Fifth says it’s “a twisted and intense love story” that's about a “passionate and intense relationship”. It is, to a degree. But that undersells the film. As an oblique examination of mental breakdown, director... Read more... |
PolisseWednesday, 13 June 2012
Hailed in some quarters for its gruelling realism in the depiction of the work of the Paris-based Child Protection Unit (the French call it La Brigade de Protection des Mineurs), Polisse is another French cop drama but with tiresome pretensions of... Read more... |
dÉbruit, Auntie Flo at The Boiler RoomThursday, 10 May 2012
Club culture has always had a tension between democratisation (“come one, come all!”) and exclusivity (the thrill of being in the know about the newest or most underground thing). The best clubs have always been the ones that find ways of short-... Read more... |
