All articles by Jonathan Romney – Page 43
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Reviews
Lunacy (Sileni)
Dir/scr: Jan Svankmajer. Czech Rep/Slovakia.2005. 118mins.The latest nightmare from veteran Czech surrealistJan Svankmajer is, as the director puts it, "aninfantile tribute to Edgar Allen Poe and the Marquis de Sade."But audiences will also see affinities with various cinematic specialists indream logic, notably Luis Buñuel and Walerian Borowczyk.An exploration of madness,sanity ...
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Reviews
Klimt
Dir: Raúl Ruiz. Aust-Ger-UK-Fr.2006. 129mins (Director's Cut)/97 mins (short version).There are biopics- and then there are biopics in the style of Raúl Ruiz. Anyone hoping for an easily comprehensible,fact-based ride through the life of Viennese painter Gustav Klimt(1862-1918) will be baffled by the flamboyantly discontinuous approach taken bythe prolific Chilean-born ...
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Reviews
Unknown White Male
Dir: Rupert Murray. UK. 2005. 88mins.A bizarre case of amnesia yields philosophical foodfor thought as well as an unorthodox character study in Unknown White Male, a thought-provoking documentary by Britishfilm-maker Rupert Murray.The film's subject is afriend of Murray's - a 35-year-old Englishman named Douglas Bruce who suddenlyand inexplicably lost all ...
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Reviews
Kissed By Winter (Vinterkyss)
Dir: Sara Johnsen. Nor. 2005. 84mins.A bereaved mother tries to come to terms with heranguish by seeking refuge in a snowbound northern village. There, she discoversunsuspected affinities with the local population, as well as finding romanceand becoming embroiled in a troubling mystery.As the above synopsissuggests, this year's official Norwegian submission ...
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Reviews
Separate Lies
Dir: Julian Fellowes. UK2005. 85mins.Actor-turned-screenwriter-turned-novelistJulian Fellowes adds another string to his bow with Separate Lies, anauspicious directorial debut that produces a staunchly old-fashioned butnonetheless taut and adult marital drama.Based on a 1951 novel byNigel Balchin, the film applies insightful psychological realism to tensionsbetween well-heeled middle-class adults. As such it is ...
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Reviews
Riviera
Dir/scr:Anne Villaceque. Fr. 2005. 94mins.Emotionaldysfunction, repressed sexuality and Southern sunshine make a potentlydisturbing combination in Riviera, second feature by French directorAnne Villaceque. In her 2000 debut Petite Cherie, Villaceque establishedtroubled female sexuality as her key theme, and she returns to it with avengeance in this subtly intense portrayal of a ...
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Reviews
The Rising: The Ballad Of Mangal Pandey
Dir: Ketan Mehta. India.2005. 150minsThe story of the IndianMutiny gets a swashbuckling spin, complete with musical numbers, in TheRising, a film that director Ketan Mehta originally planned to make in1988.The presence of Aamir Khan -star of Lagaan, one of the few Bollywood films to achieve a healthydegree of non-niche prominence ...
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Reviews
Housewarming (Travaux, On Sait Quand Ca Commence')
Dir: BrigitteRouan. Fr-UK. 2005. 95mins.Actor turneddirector Brigitte Rouan turns in the French cinematic equivalent of the'chick-lit' novel in Housewarming, a breezily disposable comedy about anindependent professional woman whose life goes into a chaotic spin. Builtaround an elegant but rather stiff central performance by Carole Bouquet, thefilm is an unexpectedly fluffy ...
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Reviews
Invisible (Les Invisibles)
Dir: Thierry Jousse.France 2005. 85mins.Sound, vision and obsession mix to stylish, provocativeeffect in Invisible, the debut film from former Cahiers Du Cinema editorThierry Jousse. The latest in a long line of that magazine's critics to turn todirecting, stretching from the nouvelle vague generation to the likes ofOlivier Assayas and Pascal ...
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Reviews
Sangre
Dir/scr: Amat Escalante.Mexico-Fr 2005. 90mins.Life's existentialgrimness, Mexican style, is the subject of Sangre, a moody, taut,elliptical but ultimately rather frustrating debut by Amat Escalante. One man'squiet but troubled life caves in on him dramatically - yet somehowundramatically - in a story of finely-observed domestic and character detailthat will fascinate some ...
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Reviews
Cold Showers (Douches Froides)
Dir: Antony Cordier. Fr.2005. 100mins.The debut fiction feature from young French directorAntony Cordier, Cold Showers may not score heavily in terms of novelty:it is, after all, a small-town coming-of-age story trimmed with edgy teenagesex. Nevertheless, his rites-of-passage feature, which screened in Directors'Fortnight at Cannes, brings an unshowy, observation intelligence to ...
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Reviews
The League Of Gentlemen's Apocalypse
Dir: Steve Bendelack. UK2005. 90mins.The League Of Gentlemen, rubber-faced Britishexponents of grotesque TV comedy, make a bravely eccentric cinema debut with TheLeague of Gentlemen's Apocalypse, a macabre farce that mixes theirdistinctive character playing with Hammer ghoulishness, movie-buff in-jokes andlashings of existential paradox in a Charlie Kaufman vein.The team - protean ...
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Reviews
The Moustache (La Moustache)
Dir:Emmanuel Carrere. Fr. 2005. 86mins.What seems like a merewhisker of a premise yields surprising results in The Moustache, aneconomical but impressive fiction debut by French director-writer EmmanuelCarrere.Originally known as ajournalist and novelist - his works were adapted by Claude Miller and NicoleGarcia as Class Trip and L'Adversaire respectively - Carrere ...
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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
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 ...