All articles by Lee Marshall – Page 37
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News
Berlin Buzz: the key films
It may be as much a question of lucky timing as one of programming genius, but at first glance the competition line-up of the 59th Berlinale, which was finalised this week, makes for an appetising buffet.The opening out-of-competition film, global finance thriller The International, stars Clive Owen and Naomi Watts. ...
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Reviews
Troubled Water
Dir: Erik Poppe. Norway-Sweden. 2008. 90 mins.A sensitive, slow-build script, original directorial vision and bravura performances turn what might have been just another high-concept melodrama centring on the death of a child into a highly-charged ride that is both gritty and poetic. Eric Poppe's third film is by no means ...
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Reviews
When A Man Comes Home (En Mand Kommer Hjem)
Dir. Thomas Vinterberg. Denmark-Sweden. 2007. 96mins.Thomas Vinterberg's artsy, bittersweet comedy, repped by Celluloid Dreams, is only now making its international bow after a disappointing Danish run a year ago. With Teodora Film set to open Italy in December, this funny Festen bowed to a warm audience at the Rome Film ...
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Reviews
The Past Is A Foreign Land (Il passato è una terra straniera)
Dir: Daniele Vicari. Italy. 2008. 120 mins.Italian director Daniele Vicari's latest outing is uneven but compellingly-dark. Shot, scored and directed with terrific command of atmosphere, this study of the relationship between a conflicted law student from a good family and the dangerous but attractive working class card-sharp he takes up ...
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Reviews
Opium War
Dir/scr Siddiq Barmak. Afghanistan-Japan-Korea-France. 2008. 92 mins.There could be a good film hiding somewhere behind Afghan director Siddiq Barmak's tragicomic parable about his country's two main industries - war and opium. But it's not up there on the screen. This Best Foreign Film Oscar candidate is a misguided, amateurish attempt ...
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Reviews
The Man Who Loves (Uomo che ama, L')
Dir: Maria Sole Tognazzi. Italy. 2008. 97 mins.Maria Sole Tognazzi's second feature, which opened this year's Rome Film Festival, has the merit of offering a rarely-seen woman's take on a man's experience of love. But behind the smokescreen of its play with the audience's gender expectations and its tricksy (but ...
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Reviews
Empty Nest (El Nido Vacio)
Dir: Daniel Burman. Argentina-Spain-France-Italy. 2008. 90mins.A quietly humorous study of the late-life crisis afflicting a no longer young married couple, Empty Nest represents a return to form for Argentinian director Daniel Burman after the humdrum Family Law. Already big in Argentina - where it notched up 150,000 admissions in its ...
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News
The critical view: reading classics
To mark its 75th anniversary, the British Film Institute asked 75 key figures 'from the world of film and current affairs' to choose the one film they would most like to share with future generations.It's an interesting line-up - not one of those utterly predictable critics' selections that are always ...
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News
Venice: A critical preview
The 2008 Venice line-up looks like one of the riskiest major festival selections in recent memory.Cross the Italian contenders, the Coen brothers, Kathryn Bigelow, Jonathan Demme and a few other media darlings off the list, and you are left with directors such as Semih Kaplanoglu from Turkey, Algerian Tariq Teguia ...
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ReviewsMid-August Lunch (Pranzo di Ferragosto)
Dir: Gianni Di Gregorio. Italy. 2008. 73mins.Small but utterly charming, Gianni di Gregorio's low-budget feature about an ageing Roman who suddenly finds himself looking after four ancient ladies over the mid-August dog days has enough heart to make up for its paper-thin story, and conceals a ...
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Reviews
Tonight (Nuit de Chien)
Dir: Werner Schroeter. France/Germany/Portugal. 2008. 121 mins.Pascal Greggory - and the audience - stumble through a violent, decadent war-torn Eurocity in veteran German filmmaker Werner Schroeter's Tonight, trying to salvage some sort of meaning from the mess. Though it flares up occasionally with noirish atmosphere and post-apocalpytic ennui, Schroeter's first ...
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Reviews
Queens Of Langkasuka (Puen-Yai-Jom-Sa-Lad)
Dir: Nonzee Nimibutr. Thailand. 2008. 133mins.A big-budget Thai period epic that mixes pirates, magic, martial arts action and a kneejerk eco-pacifist subtext, Queens Of Langkasuka is good to look at but clunky in pretty much every other department. Those in the mood for a chaste action-laced love story with dazzling ...
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ReviewsIl Seme Della Discordia
Dir: Pappi Corsicato. Italy. 2008. 84mins.Neapolitan director Pappi Corsicato conjures up the spirit but little of the dramatic and thematic depth of his acknowledged master Pedro Almodovar in this bright but lightweight comedy-melodrama. But though its afterglow is short-lived, Corsicato’s amusing little film still came as ...