All articles by Jonathan Romney – Page 44
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Reviews
Kitchen Stories (Salmer Fra Kjokkenet)
Dir: Bent Hamer. Norway, 2003. 95minsA charmingly glum, low-key audience-pleaser, Norwegian comedy Kitchen Stories was always likely to be one of the sweeter features on offer at Cannes. Although its drily reserved Nordic humour never approaches the harder edges of, say, Aki Kaurismaki's comedies, it should appeal to anyone with ...
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Reviews
That Day (Ce Jour-La)
Dir: Raoul Ruiz. France-Switzerland. 2003. 105minsLong-term followers of the maverick Raoul Ruiz - or indeed, viewers who discovered him through his unlikely 2001 box-office hit Time Regained - are used to expecting the unexpected. But the Swiss-set That Day (Ce Jour-La) is unpredictable largely for being uncharacteristically predictable, even mechanical. ...
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Reviews
Young Adam
Dir: David Mackenzie. UK, 2003. 93mins.Scottish director David Mackenzie recently divided British critics with the release of his first feature, the rough-and-ready digital drama The Last Great Wilderness. His follow-up, Young Adam, is a more rigorous proposition that amply confirms Mackenzie's promise. A powerful, disturbing adaptation of the novel by ...
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Reviews
The Principles Of Lust
Dir: Penny Woolcock. UK. 2003. 105mins.A dark moral tale with a steely eye for life's nastier side, The Principles Of Lust is a compelling and discomforting narrative with intellectual ambitions only too rare in UK cinema. Its visual rawness, distinctly European feel and provocative subject matter will no doubt make ...
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Reviews
Noi The Albino (Noi Albinoi)
Dir: Dagur Kari. Ice-Ger-UK-Den. 2003. 95mins.Noi The Albino, the debut feature of young Icelandic director Dagur Kari, is one of those films that seem absolutely of their own place and yet curiously cosmopolitan. With its characteristically Nordic comic melancholia and strikingly photographed scenery, it could not have been made anywhere ...
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Reviews
Abouna (Our Father)
Dir: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun. Chad 2002. 81mins. An engaging, low-key coming-of-age story that rings the emotional changes with confidence elegance, the second feature from Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, the director of Bye Bye Africa, is a tender, accessible piece that has better prospects for wide exposure than any African feature in a long ...
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Reviews
Focus
Dir. Neal Slavin. US 2001 104 minutes.Based on Pulitzer Prize-wining playwright Arthur Miller's 1945 novel, Focus offers a timely, yet heavy-handed look at the paranoia, fear, and ignorance that fuels religious and racial intolerance. In light of the tragic events of September 11th and the subsequent attacks ...
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Reviews
Lilo & Stitch
Dirs: Chris Sanders, Dean DeBlois. US. 2002. 85mins.Lilo & Stitch may not push the animation envelope much, but with its modestly scaled story and retro cartooning techniques, this endearing ugly duckling tale could still give Disney its biggest traditionally animated summer hit in years. The film's $35.3m opening weekend US ...
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Reviews
The Uncertainty Principle (O Principio Da Incerteza)
Dir: Manoel de Oliveira. Portugal 2002. 133mins. Nowadays more prolific than ever, 93-year-old Portuguese veteran Manoel de Oliveira continues to follow his own wildly idiosyncratic path. Although in many ways decorous, even a little staid in its composure, The Uncertainty Principle is overall a characteristically eccentric venture that is as ...
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Reviews
A Piece Of Sky (Une Part Du Ciel)
Dir: Benedicte Lienard. Belgium-France-Luxembourg. 2002. 85mins.Defiantly out of step with the prevailing mood of the times, Une Part du Ciel makes no bones about its militant political stance nor about its intransigent art-cinema leanings. A story of two estranged female friends - one a factory worker, the other serving time ...
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Reviews
El Bonaerense
Dir: Pablo Trapero. Argentina 2002. 92mins. The Buenos Aires police department comes under wry satirical scrutiny in the second feature by the director of the highly-acclaimed Mondo Grua (Crane World). The business of crime-fighting has rarely looked so farcically disreputable outside the Police Academy series, but the humour here is ...
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Reviews
L'Adversaire (The Adversary)
Dir: Nicole Garcia. France 2002. 120 mins.A slow, sombre drama about a mythomaniac in crisis, the latest film by actress-turned-director Nicole Garcia is a stolid effort that additionally suffers by covering too-familiar material. Its story is fundamentally the same as the one told by Laurent Cantet in his recent L'Emploi ...
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Reviews
Unknown Pleasures (Ren Xiao Yao)
Dir: Jia Zhang-Ke. China 2002. 113 mins. CompetitionA film about teenage aimlessness that evokes its subject only too well, the third feature by Jia Zhang-Ke, director of Xiao Wu and Platform, is a loose, funky digital venture that undoubtedly feels as if it captures the authentic beat of contemporary Chinese ...
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Reviews
10
Dir: Abbas Kiarostami. Iran/France 2002. 94 mins. In competitionA defiantly no-frills exercise even by his ascetic standards, 10 is Abbas Kiarostami's triumphant vindication of digital video's potential to produce a kind of cinema that cannot be achieved by other means. This is screen minimalism at its most uncompromising: 10 sequences ...
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Reviews
The Man Without A Past (Mies Vailla Menneisyytta)
Dir: Aki Kaurismaki. Finland. 2002. 97mins. Screening in CompetitionA low-life comedy-drama guaranteed to leave the viewer feeling high, the latest from Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki has all of his distinctive features: poker-faced humour, stripped-down and highly composed visuals, and a humanist romantic sensibility. All combine to make The Man Without ...
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Reviews
The Man Without A Past (Mies Vailla Menneisyytta)
Dir: Aki Kaurismaki. Finland. 2002. 97mins. Screening in CompetitionA low-life comedy-drama guaranteed to leave the viewer feeling high, the latest from Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki has all of his distinctive features: poker-faced humour, stripped-down and highly composed visuals, and a humanist romantic sensibility. All combine to make The Man Without ...
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Reviews
REVIEW: Demonlover
Dir: Olivier Assayas. France 2002. 129mins. Screened in CompetitionDemonlover is the latest victim of the French tradition whereby a highly respected director over-reaches drastically, eliciting critical calumny and press-show booing - something that has happened in Cannes to the likes of Beineix, Carax and Kassovitz. It is a shame to ...
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Reviews
REVIEW: Kedma
Dir: Amos Gitai. Israel/France/Italy 2002. 100 mins.Following films such as Kadosh and his last Cannes entry Kippur, Kedma is the latest of Amos Gitai's provocative inquiries into Israeli history and identity. Set in 1948, seven days before the creation of the state of Israel, Kedma proposes a return to historical ...
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News
London Film Critics applaud Moulin Rouge
Moulin Rouge claimed three of the main awards bestowed by the London Film Critics Circle on Feb 13 at London's Dorchester Hotel.The film's stars, Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman won British actor of the year and International actress of the year respectively, while the movie itself was awarded international film ...
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News
France's UGC to enter UK distribution market
French major UGC is planning to give foreign-language films a massive boost in the notoriously tough UK market by launching a UK distribution presence early next year.Plans for the initiative are being hammered out by UGC International executive Louisa Dent, who will oversee acquisitions for the venture. Dent, who declined ...