All articles by Lee Marshall – Page 41
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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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News
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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News
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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News
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 ...
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ReviewsThe Pleasure Of Being Robbed
Dir: Josh Safdie. US. 2008. 68mins.A glance at the multi-tasking names in the credits is enough to show just how homemade New York film-maker Josh Safdie’s debut film is. And at just 68 minutes, it challenges the definition of full-length feature. But it would be a ...
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ReviewsPrivate Lessons (Eleve Libre)
Dir: Joachim Lafosse. Belgium-France. 2008. 105mins.Reunited with the same co-writer, the same crew and many of the same themes he explored in his 2006 Venice competion entry Private Property (Nue Propriete), buzzy Belgian auteur Joaquim Lafosse crafts another original, disturbing work which fails however to scale ...
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ReviewsThe Rest Of The Night (Il Resto Della Notte)
Dir/scr: Francesco Munzi. Italy. 2008. 103mins.Frederico Munzi lives up to the promise he showed in his debut Saimir with this dark multi-linear drama-thriller set amongst Italy’s new immigrant underclass. It’s a timely theme given the ongoing crackdown on illegal immigration by the country’s recently elected centre-right ...