Latest – Page 678
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Reviews
Since Otar Left (Depuis Qu'Otar Est Parti)
Dir: Julie Bertuccelli. France-Belgium. 2003. 102minsThe modest but solid debut of French film-maker Julie Bertuccelli, Since Otar Left should be considered closely by festivals looking for a film that connects with audiences while admirably resisting every temptation offered by its touching story to plunge into bathos by over-plucking the heartstrings. ...
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Reviews
At Five In The Afternoon (Panj E Asr)
Dir: Samira Makhmalbaf. Iran-France. 2003. 106minsAlthough dialogue-heavy longueurs that are endemic to Iranian cinema will make Samira Makhmalbaf's film - which won the Jury Prize at this year's Cannes - trying for some, adepts will welcome it with open arms. It is filmed in traditional Makhmalbafian family style, in which ...
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Reviews
Elephant
Dir: Gus Van Sant. US. 2003. 81minsIn recent years Gus Van Sant's erratic career has had all the hallmarks ofan amnesiac desperately seeking clues to his true identity. He has assumedthe ill-fitting personalities of Hitchcock imitator (Psycho) and Dogme-styleexperimenter (Gerry) and even appeared to try cloning himself with a GoodWill ...
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Reviews
Who Killed Bambi' (Qui A Tue Bambi')
Dir: Gilles Marchand. France. 2003. 126minsStrip away the veneer of sophisticated film technique and the delusions of artistic merit and Who Killed Bambi' is just another crude scary movie. Best known as the co-writer of the Hitchcockian delight Harry, A Friend Who Is Happy To Help, Gilles Marchand displays an ...
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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
Strayed (Les Egares)
Dir: Andre Techine. France. 2003. 95minsTender and tasteful, Strayed (Les Egares) takes a conventional approach to what will seem familiar material to most international audiences. Set amid sun-dappled vistas of rural France, it captures the conflicting emotions and underlying tensions of a lyrical interlude stolen from the chaos of wartime ...
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Reviews
Strayed (Les Egares)
Dir: Andre Techine. France. 2003. 95minsTender and tasteful, Strayed (Les Egares) takes a conventional approach to what will seem familiar material to most international audiences. Set amid sun-dappled vistas of rural France, it captures the conflicting emotions and underlying tensions of a lyrical interlude stolen from the chaos of wartime ...
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Reviews
Belleville Rendez-Vous (Les Triplettes De Belleville)
Dir: Sylvain Chomet. France-Canada-Belgium. 2003. 80minsTrailing great advance word of mouth ahead of its Out Of Competition screening at Cannes, and heralded as a new departure for French animation, Belleville Rendez-Vous turns out to be a hugely inventive, visually-striking and often delightful story. However, it is let down by a ...
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Reviews
The Hours Of The Day (Las Horas Del Dia)
Dir: Jaime Rosales. Spain. 2003. 110mins.Spanish film-maker Jaime Rosales' The Hours Of The Day (Las Horas Del Dia) marks a confident debut feature, and one which should have no trouble finding a niche on the festival circuit - as its acceptance in Directors' Fortnight at Cannes testifies. It may also ...
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Reviews
The Brown Bunny
Dir: Vincent Gallo. US. 2003. 118minsA theory began circulating in Cannes after the press showing of The Brown Bunny, Vincent Gallo's astonishingly self-indulgent second film as director (and producer, and scriptwriter, and... see the credits below for more details). The theory was that the whole thing was actually a wind-up ...
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Reviews
Reconstruction
Dir: Christoffer Boe. Denmark. 2003. 89minsAfter sowing its wild oats, Dogme has settled down and started a family. Christoffer Boe, one of the first products of this post-Lars generation, is not so much concerned with stripping cinema down to its basics as with manipulating its shimmering surface. The first full-length ...
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Reviews
Stormy Weather
Dir: Solveig Anspach. France-Iceland-Belgium. 2003. 90minsA compact little film destined to do well on TV screens, and with careful handling on the arthouse circuit as well, Solveig Anspach's third feature goes back to medical matters, but is quite different from those she explored in her Haut Les Coeurs' debut. This ...
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Reviews
Dogville
Dir: Lars von Trier. Denmark. 2003. 177minsThe 900lb gorilla of this year's Cannes Competition, Lars von Trier's Dogville is a typically uncompromising experiment in stripped down narrative. Excessive in its running-time and highly theatrical in its execution, it ultimately emerges as a vivid and thoughtful exploration of a world condemned ...
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Reviews
Swimming Pool
Dir: Francois Ozon. France. 2003. 102minsNobody is better qualified than Francois Ozon to speculate on the sources of an artist's creativity. Six features in as many years have made him one of the most prolific and admired of European young guns. Swimming Pool is an entertaining and initially intriguing exploration ...
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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
Daddy Day Care
Dir: Steve Carr. US. 2003. 93 mins Working with animals in his two Dr Dolittle movies, Eddie Murphy produced some decent laughs and some good box office numbers (approaching $500m in total). Working with children in Daddy Day Care, Murphy and Dolittle 2 director Steve Carr come up with a ...
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Reviews
Love Hurts (Amarte Duele)
Dir: Fernando Sarinana. Mexico. 2002. 110mins.Having proved his box-office mettle in his native Mexico, producer-turned director Fernando Sarinana has been building an international profile with such offerings as Hasta Morir (Til Death, 1994), Todo El Poder (Give Me Power, 1999) and his pitch-black fresco of Mexico City grotesques, Ciudades Oscuras ...
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Reviews
Fanfan La Tulipe
Dir. Gerard Krawczyk. France. 2003. 100mins.Supposedly a fluffy piece of entertainment to kick off Cannes' 56th festival in style, Gerard Krawczyk's remake of the swashbuckler classic - which won Christian-Jaque the best director award in 1952 - is a pretty plodding and charmless experience that works too hard but not ...
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Reviews
The Barbarian Invasions (Les Invasions Barbares)
Dir. Denys Arcand. Canada-France. 2003. 111mins.On paper, The Barbarian Invasions is a conventional drama about a dying man's reconciliation with his son and his acceptance of impending non-existence. In the hands of writer-director Denys Arcand, the result is an intensely personal exploration of life as a fifty-something Quebecois intellectual.. Ostensibly ...
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Reviews
Present Perfect (Passato Prossimo)
Dir: Maria Sole Tognazzi. Italy. 2003. 89minsFive friends meet up in a country house somewhere outside Rome over a long winter weekend. Each has unresolved relationship problems, some have problems with each other, and memories of other weekends in the same house hang in the air like distorting mirrors. More ...