All articles by Jonathan Romney – Page 42
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Reviews
Tale Of Cinema (Keuk jang jeon)
Dir/scr: Hong Sangsoo. SKor-Fr. 2005. 90minsHong Sangsoo, Korea's master of elliptical urbannarrative, returns with a characteristically slippery slice of Seoul realism inTale Of Cinema, which morphs halfway through into a meditation oncinema, love and reality. The narrative spectacularly wrong-foots the viewerabout an hour in, but even given this perspectival twist, ...
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Reviews
Tale Of Cinema (Keuk jang jeon)
Dir/scr: Hong Sangsoo. SKor-Fr. 2005. 90minsHong Sangsoo, Korea's master of elliptical urbannarrative, returns with a characteristically slippery slice of Seoul realism inTale Of Cinema, which morphs halfway through into a meditation oncinema, love and reality. The narrative spectacularly wrong-foots the viewerabout an hour in, but even given this perspectival twist, ...
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Reviews
Tale Of Cinema (Keuk jang jeon)
Dir/scr: Hong Sangsoo. SKor-Fr. 2005. 90minsHong Sangsoo, Korea's master of elliptical urbannarrative, returns with a characteristically slippery slice of Seoul realism inTale Of Cinema, which morphs halfway through into a meditation oncinema, love and reality. The narrative spectacularly wrong-foots the viewerabout an hour in, but even given this perspectival twist, ...
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Reviews
To Paint Or Make Love (Peindre Ou Faire L'amour)
Dir/scr: Arnaud andJean-Marie Larrieu. Fr. 2005. 98mins.The second film byFrance's talented, and as yet little-known, team the Larrieu brothers promisedto be a wild card in the Cannes competition. Given their inventive, hugelyoddball debut feature A Real Man (2003), their follow-up could well haveturned out as much a mood-lightening charmer as ...
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Reviews
The Child (L'Enfant)
Dir/scr: Jean-Pierre andLuc Dardenne. Bel-Fr. 2005. 95mins A few square miles of unprepossessing urban landscapecontinue to yield a rich fictional universe in the Dardenne brothers' latestchronicle of life among modern European have-nots.Filmed as usual in theBelgian industrial town of Seraing, The Child continues the run ofsteely, confident realist dramas that ...
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Reviews
A History Of Violence
Dir: David Cronenberg.US. 2005. 96minsTwo American genres - thefilm noir and the Western - are gene-spliced into vigorous new shape in whatlooks, at first sight, like David Cronenberg's most mainstream project inyears. Yet A History Of Violence, a deviously-plotted tale of danger andthe darkness beneath innocent surfaces, soon reveals characteristic ...
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Reviews
With Blood On My Hands ' Pusher II (Pusher II)
Dir/scr: Nicolas Winding Refn. Den. 2004. 96minsAfter Pusher and Bleeder,Nicolas Winding Refn's third low-life drama could easily have been called Loser,with its portrait of a small-time thug on the skids. Going back to realistroots after a bold detour with the US-set existential thriller Fear X,Denmark's Refn offers his most confident ...
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Reviews
I Am A Sex Addict
Dir/scr:Caveh Zahedi. US. 2005. 90minsAttimes, you don't know whether to laugh or cringe at I Am A Sex Addict, awitty, self-reflexive, often painfully revealing drama-doc confessional from USindependent film-maker Caveh Zahedi. As the title suggests, the film isZahedi's account of some 20 years struggling with his fetish for prostitutes,an obsession ...
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Reviews
The Forest For The Trees (Der Wald Vor Lauter Baumen)
Dir:Maren Ade. Ger. 2003. 81minsA sober psychological drama about a novice teacher in meltdown, Maren Ade'slow-budget The Forest for the Trees builds slowly but assuredly toproduce an unsettling final kick. An introverted but commanding lead performanceby Eva Lobau should put her name on the map, as well as that of ...
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Reviews
As It Is In Heaven (Sa Som I Himmelen)
Dir/scr: Kay Pollak.Sweden-Denmark. 2004. 130minsSweden's entry in theforthcoming Academy Awards, As It Is In Heaven is an accomplishedcrowd-pleaser, and surely a front runner for this year's Film Most Likely To BeRemade By Hollywood.A tragi-comic musical romancethat shamelessly but efficiently tugs the heartstrings, the determinedlymiddle-brow offering represents a comeback for veteran ...
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Reviews
Melinda And Melinda
Dir: Woody Allen, US2004. 99 mins After a run of lightweight comedies that caused evenhardcore supporters to lose patience, Woody Allen achieves a heartening returnto form with his most idiosyncratic and substantial film in some time. Agenuine tragi-comedy - in that it counterpoints two parallel stories, tragicand comic - Melinda ...
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Reviews
Layer Cake
Dir:Matthew Vaughn. UK 2004. 100minsTrue,the directing debut of Matthew Vaughn - who made his name as producer of GuyRitchie's crime capers - is indeed a British gangland thriller. But it carriesfew traces of the saloon-bar jokiness that was Ritchie's trademark in Lock,Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. Although slick ...
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Reviews
Nelly (A Ce Soir)
Dir: Laure Duthilleul.Fr. 2004. 94mins.The complaint isfrequently made that the French production system too often allows film-makersto please themselves rather than justify their intentions to an audience. Thisis a charge unfortunately born out by Nelly, a small, eccentric dramathat was clearly a labour of love for director Laure Duthilleul, but ...
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Reviews
Right Now (A Tout De Suite)
Dir/scr:Benoit Jacquot. France. 2004. 95minsBenoitJacquot's Right Now contains a series of incidents rather than what onemight usually call a story - which hits just the right note for this study of ayoung woman drifting without a compass through a tumultuous period of her life.Based on events that happened to Elisabeth ...
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Reviews
Our Music (Notre Musique)
Dir/scr: Jean-Luc Godard. France 2004. 80minsA characteristically encyclopaedic disquisition onwords, images and war, the latest essay-fiction from Jean-Luc Godard is notobviously as visually striking as its predecessor, Eloge De l'Amour, andis considerably more dense verbally. But this three-parter shows Godard to beas perplexing and provocative as ever.Undoubtedly it will appeal ...
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Reviews
Schizo (Shiza)
Dir: Guka OmarovaRuss-Kazahkstan-Fr-Ger. 2004. 90mins.Don't be fooled by themisleading English title, already used by at least two slasher pics. Kazhakfeature Schizo is a terse but gripping, elegantly crafted slice ofrealist drama, with an edge of low-life thriller. Evoking the desperate mood ofsubsistence-level life in the newly-independent Kazhakstan of the early ...
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Reviews
The Ordeal (Calvaire)
Dir: Fabrice du Welz. Fr-Bel-Lux. 2004. 90mins.Callinga film The Ordeal is surely asking for trouble, and this unforgivingexercise in Belgian Gothic is undeniably a rough ride for the faint of heart.However, anyone receptive to macabre psycho-horror with a distinct streak ofblack humour will find much to relish.Pitchedbetween Euro art-thriller and ...
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Reviews
Welcome To Switzerland (Bienvenue En Suisse)
Dir/scr:Lea Fazer. Fr-Switz. 2004. 107mins.Awould-be crowd-pleasing comedy, Lea Fazer's one-joke comedy of culturalmisunderstandings squanders a talented cast and quickly wears out its welcome.Ahighly inappropriate selection to open the Un Certain Regard section at Cannesthis year, the film is too broad to appeal on the festival circuit, and is tooculturally specific ...
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Reviews
After We're Gone (En Attendant Le Deluge)
Dir/scr: Damien Odoul. France. 2004. 80minsCannes simply would not be Cannes without at least onehighly-rated French auteur coming a cropper. This year it was the turn ofDamien Odoul, who made a dazzling debut in 2000 with Le Souffle, adream-like rural coming-of-age drama.Havinglost momentum with his prestigiously cast follow-up L'Errance, Odoul ...
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Reviews
Clean
Dir/scr: Olivier Assayas.France/Canada 2004. 80 mins.Like his film's heroine,French director Olivier Assayas returns to the straight and narrow in Clean,an emotionally fluent drama that is a world removed from his last film, theexperimental cyber-thriller Demonlover. Another predominantlyEnglish-language venture, Clean sees Assayas working again with Asianstar and ex-wife Maggie Cheung for ...