All articles by Jonathan Romney – Page 42
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Reviews
Hallam Foe
Dir: David Mackenzie. UK. 2007. 96mins. In Hallam Foe, Jamie Bell continues to slough off the shadow of Billy Elliot, while director David Mackenzie (Young Adam) gets back on confident form after his unsteady psychodrama Asylum. But while it has panache to spare, this very Scottish coming-of-age story suffers from ...
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Reviews
Don't Touch The Axe (Ne Touchez Pas La Hache)
Dir: Jacques Rivette. Fr-It. 2007. 137mins Elegance, austerity, high seriousness, barbed wit: this heady combination might not be to everyone's taste, but anyone susceptible to literary costume drama at its most intellectually substantial will be bowled over by Don't Touch The Axe, Jacques Rivette's surprisingly faithful adaptation of Balzac's novel ...
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Reviews
Yella
Dir/writer: Christian Petzold. Germany 2007.89 minsFor some, existential business-world drama Yella will be the proverbial mystery wrapped within a riddle wrapped within an enigma. But for audiences with a taste for intellectual stimulation, Christian Petzold's film will be an invigorating tease: its sheer originality and stylistic confidence certainly hit the ...
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Reviews
Irina Palm
Dir: Sam Garbarski Bel-Ger-Lux-UK-Fr. 2007. 103mins It may be the work of a German-born, Belgian-based director, but Euro co-production Irina Palm is a thoroughly British film at heart - the latest in that 'naughty-but-nice' vein of stories that delight in placing genteel English matrons in risque situations. Sam Garbarski's film ...
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Reviews
Mein Fuhrer: The Truly Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler (Mein Fuhrer - Die Wirklich Wahrste Wahrheit Uber Adolf Hitler)
It's not quite The Great Dictator, nor Lubitsch's To Be Or Not To Be (nor even Mel Brooks's remake of it). But for audacity and good intentions at least, Dani Levy's Hitler comedy Mein Fuhrer belongs in a more honourable tradition than its buffoonish tone immediately suggests. Despite some hostile ...
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Reviews
Witnesses (Les Temoins)
Dir: Andre Techine. France. 2007. 115minsTechine powerfully reasserts his status as one of European cinema's most adult film-makers in Witnesses, a complex, assured evocation of the mid-80s, when French society was first confronted with the reality of Aids. In a simple narrative framework - made a touch more complex by ...
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Reviews
Goodbye Bafana
Dir: Bille August. France/Germany/Belgium/Italy/South Africa 2007. 117 mins Denmark's double Palme d'Or laureate Bille August takes on one of modern historical cinema's holy grails, after a fashion: in its indirect way, GoodbyeBafana is nearly the Nelson Mandela story. But where he once scored with The Best Intentions, August's noble purpose ...
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Reviews
The Mark of Cain
Dir: Marc Munden. UK. 2007. 90mins Moral dilemmas both public and personal form the core of The Mark of Cain, a gripping and very timely drama about British forces in Iraq. Written by playwright and TV screenwriter Tony Marchant (Kid in the Corner, Holding On), a specialist in bringing political ...
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News
International Film Festival Rotterdam 2007
36th International Film Festival Rotterdam in numbers(2006 numbers in brackets)367,000 Visitors to the festival (358,000)2,940Festival guests (2,814)1,960International festival guests: 1,960 (1,788) 841CineMart guests (850) 495Journalists attending (476)390Attending film-makers (379) Award Winners VPRO Tiger AwardsLove Conquers All (Tan Chui Mui, Malaysian)The Unpolished (Die Unerzogenen) (Pia Marais, Germany)Bog Of Beasts (Baixio Das ...
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Reviews
Scott Walker: 30 Century Man
Dir: Stephen Kijak. UK. 2006. 90mins.A great enigma of modern music sheds a few layers ofopacity in Stephen Kijak's revealing documentary Scott Walker: 30 Century Man. With a challenging new record recently issued, thereclusive, sporadically active American-born singer is seen at close quarters,while collaborators and assorted music notables, including executive ...
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Reviews
Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer (Parfum: Die Geschichte Eines Morders)
Dir: Tom Tykwer. Ger-Fr-Sp. 2006. 140mins.Tom Tykwer pulls out allthe stops with his sumptuous English-language adaptation of Patrick Suskind's novel Perfume,making for a daring and imposing achievement that is likely to leave audiencesstunned and somewhat exhausted rather than truly dazzled.With its dark tone, wilfullymorbid subject matter and antipathetic protagonist, it ...
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Reviews
Demented (Le Dernier Des Fous)
Dir: Laurent Achard. Fr. 2006. 96mins.A stark corrective to the tradition of lyrical Frenchfilms about the tender joys of growing up in the country, Laurent Achard's Dementedis a Gothic but soberly-executed melodrama about childhood as hell. Based on anovel by Canadian writer Timothy Findley, Achard'sfilm gives us a child's-eye view ...
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Reviews
Inside Paris (Dans Paris)
Dir/scr: Christophe Honore. Fr. 2005. 92mins.Up-and-coming French auteur Christophe Honore shows a surprisingly light touch with Inside Paris, the follow-up to hissombre, sexually challenging Georges Batailleadaptation Ma Mere. A thoughtful butlightly-executed, often ebullient, family drama with distinct stylistic nods toearly 1960s nouvelle vague, Inside Parisboasts engaging performances all around, especially ...
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Reviews
First Love (Hatsu-Koi)
Dir: Yukinari Hanawa. Jap. 2006. 114mins.Teenage rebellion, social history andtrue crime merge together in tenderly anaemic fashion in First Love,based on a quasi-autobiographical novel by MisuzuNakahara. The first feature in 10 years by Tokyo Skin director Yukinari Hanawa, First Lovehas struck a slight chord with audiences in Japan - where ...
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Reviews
Transe
Dir/scr: Teresa Villaverde. Port-Fr-It. 2006. 126mins.There are the seeds of a coherently harrowing drama about European sex traffic in Teresa Villaverde's Transe, but you have to dig deep to find them. Part road movie, part abstract essay and - as the title suggests - part free-floating hallucination, the latest film ...
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Reviews
To Get To Heaven First You Have To Die (Bihisht Faqat Barqi Murdagon)
Dir/scr: Djamshed Usmonov. Fr-Ger-Switz-Russ. 2006. 93mins.Narratives rarely come crisper and more to the pointthan To Get To HeavenFirst You Have To Die - and audiences rarely get taken on suchsubtly unpredictable rides. The new film from DjamshedUsmanov, the Tajik director of Angel On The Right, begins as adeceptively gentle, tragic-comic ...
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Reviews
Komma
Dir: Martine Doyen. Bel-Fr. 2006. 90mins.A mystery within a riddle wrapped in an enigma, orperhaps just your averagely cryptic existential romance, Komma is an initially tantalisingdream-like oddity that doesn't sustain its interest. A story of two traumatisedoddballs getting together in a subtly unreal Brussels, this debut from multipleshorts prize-winner Martine ...
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Reviews
Avida
Dirs/scr: Benoit Delepine, Gustave Kervern. Fr. 2006. 83mins.Even by thestandards of their eccentric road comedy debut Aaltra, Benoit Delepine and Gustave Kervern's Avida - described in the press notes as a 'metaphysicalcomedy' - is bizarre indeed. Starting out as a Tati-esquesilent farce crammed with off-the-wall sight gags, this wayward tale ...
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Reviews
Transylvania
France. 2006. 103mins. Director, screenplay Tony GatlifIn Transylvania cult diva Asia Argentotakes to the agitated universe of Romany film-maker Tony Gatliflike a duck to water. The latestof French-based Gatlif's ventures into the world ofGypsy and Eastern European culture, Transylvania is at once romance,road movie, ethnological celebration, and vehicle for the ...
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Reviews
Colossal Youth
Dir: Pedro Costa. Portugal/France/Switzerland 2006. 155 mins Without a doubt the most difficult film in this year's Cannes competition - where it provoked more walk-outs than any other film - Pedro Costa's hyper-austere Colossal Youth at least deserves some recognition and respect. While the film admittedly seems inert for ...