All articles by Lee Marshall – Page 38
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ReviewsInland (Gabbla)
Dir: Tariq Teguia. Algeria-France. 2008. 145mins.For anyone with the strength to sit through the whole 145 minutes of this sadistically-paced cinematic reflection on the state of contemporary Algeria, there are a few small compensations: some moments of visual poetry, particularly in the final desert scenes, and ...
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ReviewsThe Sky Crawlers
Dir: Mamoru Oshii. Japan. 2008. 122mins.Mamoru Oshii’s most meditative feature-length animation to date tells the story of a group of genetically modified eternally-young fighter aces in a world where war has become a company-sponsored reality game. Like the Peter-Pan ‘Kildren’ that it depicts, The Sky Crawlers ...
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ReviewsMilk (Sut)
Dir: Semih Kaplanoglu. Turkey-France-Germany. 2008. 111mins.Painfully slow but at the same time a resonant, elegiac coming of age story, the second installment in Turkish arthouse director Semih Kaplanoglu’s Yusuf trilogy shows him to be something of a magic-realist Terence Davies. But with its overlong shots in ...
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ReviewsGoodbye Solo
Dir: Ramin Bahrani. US. 2008. 91mins.An odd-couple relationship fuels a slow-burning but ultimately moving emotional and spiritual journey in Ramin Bahrani’s third feature. As in the well-received festival faves Man Push Cart and Chop Shop, the US director of Iranian origins unspools a story set among ...
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ReviewsPlastic City (Dangkou)
Dir: Yu Lik-wai. Brazil-China-Japan. 2008. 118mins.An underdeveloped yakuza-in-Brazil storyline and a hip- hop VJ sound-and-image assault do not add up to a rounded arthouse film in Yu Lik-wai’s PlasticCity. Despite some moments of visual brilliance, this third directorial outing by Jia Zhangke’s regular cinematographer betrays the ...
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ReviewsL'Autre
Dirs: Patrick Mario Bernard, Pierre Trividic. France. 2008. 97mins.This rather frosty but nevertheless intriguing study of one woman’s descent into jealousy, which premiered in competition at Venice, is one of those well-crafted exercises that plays better in the viewing than in the recall. That’s because it’s ...
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ReviewsKabuli Kid
Dir: Barmak Akram. France-Afghanistan. 2008. 95mins.What makes this small French-backed Afghan charmer, which premiered in Critics’ Week at Venice, more than just a heartwarming quest comedy is its grounding in the everyday chaos and strict social and religious codes of war-ravaged Kabul. Though honed by script ...
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ReviewsThe Burning Plain
Dir: Guillermo Arriaga. USA. 2008. 105 mins.His much-publicised falling out with director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu seems to have done Guillermo Arriaga the world of good. The Burning Plain, which the Mexican writer directed from his own script, is a powerful contemporary melodrama, more restrained but also ...
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ReviewsCold Lunch (Lonsj)
Dir: Eva Sorhaug. Norway. 2008. 86mins.A few good scenes, some quirky characters and a striking visual style don’t quite add up to a hot meal in Eva Sorhaug’s bite-sized Cold Lunch. Screening as an out of competition title in this year’s Critics’ Week, the Norwegian interlinked ...
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Critical comment: Literary adaptations
Cinema is the most confident and insecure of art forms. When it's on home ground, it's a strutting gang leader, but as soon as it meets one of the old bosses - literature, say, or theatre - it lies down and plays the doormat. And literature and theatre, for their ...
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ReviewsBroken Lines (2007)
Dir: Sallie Aprahamian. UK. 2008. 113mins.Immersed in the gritty multicultural realities and historical short-circuits of life in the northern suburb of Finsbury Park, Broken Lines is one of the rare films that nails the odd flavour of contemporary London. Like Shane Meadows’ recent Somers Town, it ...
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The critical view - Minority report
Can I say The Dark Knight is, in my opinion, not a very good film' I am puzzled and perturbed by the overwhelmingly positive critical response the film has attracted from fellow critics, especially in the US.Let me list my main objections to Christopher Nolan's latest 'masterpiece'.First, it is a ...
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The critical view: On the money
Critics rarely give much thought to the money side of the film industry. In fact, if I miss a film's national press preview or international festival debut, my desire to see it later, alongside a paying public, is generally in inverse proportion to its box-office success.This isn't just critical petulance ...
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Reviews
Eldorado
Dir/scr. Bouli Lanners. Belgium/France. 2008. 86 mins.A dysfunctional Belgian pair of Laurel and Hardy loners bond affectingly in Eldorado, Bouli Lanners' second directorial outing which picked up the Europa Cinemas Label and the FIPRESCI Quinzaine award at this year's Cannes festival. Visually striking and musically inventive, Eldorado doses out its ...
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Reviews
The Stranger In Me (Das Fremde In Mir)
Dir: Emily Atef. Germany. 2008. 99mins.One of the most powerful surviving social taboos - a mother's rejection of her new-born baby - is turned into a small but resonant drama in Emily Atef's second feature, which was one of the highlights of this year's Critic's Week in Cannes. With a ...