All articles by Lee Marshall – Page 41
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Reviews
Captain Abu Raed
Dir/Scr: Amin Matalqa. Jordan/USA 2007. 109mins.Only a handful of full-length films have come out of Jordan in the fifty years since the country's first feature, Struggle in Jarash. This makes Captain Abu Raed's commercial poise and polish all the more remarkable: a moving dramatic fable about an elderly airport janitor's ...
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Reviews
Whatever Lola Wants
Dir: Nabil Ayouch, France/Canada. 2007. 110 mins.French-produced, set between New York and Cairo, scored by an Indian-born French composer and directed by a Moroccan, Whatever Lola Wants practices the same enlightened multiculturalism that it so passionately preaches. But although Nabil Ayouch's mid-budget third feature has its heart in the right ...
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News
Dubai's top Muhr award goes to Lebanese drama Under the Bombs
Lebanese cine-verite drama Under the Bombs, and Soneaa Fi Masr (Made in Egypt), French director Karim Goury's first-person story of his search for his Egyptian biological father, picked up the Muhr Gold awards for best narrative feature and best documentary at this year's Dubai International Film Festival, which ran from ...
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News
George Clooney opens Dubai International Film Festival
The fourth edition of the Dubai International Film Festival, which showcases 141 films from 52 countries, kicked off with a glamorous gala presentation of legal thriller Michael Clayton. Speaking at the opening press conference, the film's star George Clooney highlighted the role of the lavishly-funded festival in acting as a ...
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News
Glory days for Middle East
One of the unexpected consequences of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 has been the resurgence of Middle Eastern and North African cinema. Alongside the established players - Egypt, still living off its Bollywood-on-the-Nile reputation, and arthouse darling Iran - countries with little cinematic infrastructure have begun to emerge. ...
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Features
Production - Festival focus - Dubai fest bids for star status
Now in its fourth year, the Dubai International Film Festival (Diff) has become a focal point for the Persian Gulf's growing interest in the film industry as an economic, cultural and PR platform.Festival chairman Abdulhamid Juma points out that until recently, the territory was known in the film world chiefly ...
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Reviews
And The Spring Comes (Li Chun)
Dir: Gu Changwei. China. 2007. 105mins.Former cinematographer Gu Changwei's follow-up to the well-received Peacock, which won a Berlin Silver Bear in 2005, sees the director teaming up once again with screenwriter Li Qiang for another 1980s period piece set in a provincial Chinese town. A funny-sad character study of a ...
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Reviews
Days and Clouds (Giorni e Nuvole)
Dir: Silvio Soldini Italy/Switzerland 2007. 115 mins.The strongest of the five Italian films that received their national premieres at the Rome Film Fest, Days and Clouds (which also played in Toronto and London) is a fine piece of emotional eye-on-the-object filmmaking from homegrown auteur Silvio Soldini and regular screenplay sidekick ...
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Reviews
Noise
Dir/scr: Henry Bean. US. 2007. 91 mins .Noise has an intriguing idea at its core: it centres on a New York resident who begins a one-man guerilla campaign against urban noise pollution. But having hooked us with the tagline, director Henry Bean never seems to be sure quite where to ...
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Reviews
Let's Say (On Dirait Que)
Dir: Francoise Marie, France 2007. 82 mins.A touching, telling documentary about older children's perspectives on the world of grown-ups, Let's Pretend That... has the potential to rival the success of Etre et Avoir (To Be and To Have) - Nicolas Phillibert's widely distributed study of a primary school class in ...
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Reviews
Second Wind (Le Deuxieme Souffle)
Dir: Alain Corneau. France 2007. 148 mins. Second Wind is an ultra-stylised, garishly-tinted retro genre exercise that rambles on for two and a half hours without ever answering the question of why we need another version of Jose Giovanni's gritty novel about honour among thieves, which was inspired by the ...
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Reviews
August Rush
Dir: Kirsten Sheridan. US/Korea 2007. 111mins. August Rush opens as it means to continue - with a young boy up to his eyes in corn. But you have to hand it to director Kirsten Sheridan: the sheer dewy-eyed belief in miracles of this music-based fairy tale is persuasive, and those ...
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News
Critical Mass with Lee Marshall -Past perfect
There's a film that's been building in my mind ever since I saw it, to the point where I've started to think it might just be the future of cinema. It's En La Ciudad De Sylvia by Jose Luis Guerin, a Spanish director who every five years or so makes ...
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News
Critical Mass: What happened to the 90-minute film'
Whatever happened to the 90-minute film' You only have to look at the top prizes at Venice this year to realise this classic running time is no longer the norm. The Golden Lion went to Ang Lee's Lust, Caution (156 minutes). The Special Jury prize was shared by The Secret ...
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Reviews
Echo
Denmark/Germany/Sweden 2007. 84 mins.An edgy, horror-tinged thriller about a divorced father's abduction of his young son is marred by a heavy-handed use of backstory in Anders Morgenthaler's Echo. But the second film of the versatile Danish director still has enough going for it as a twisted take on the Scandinavian ...
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Reviews
Soul Carriage
Dir: Conrad Clark. UK/China 2007. 82 mins.A surprise winner of the Altadis new directors' award at the San Sebastian film festival, Conrad Clark's Soul Carriage is original in two important ways. Firstly because the 28-year-old British director's debut film is entirely set in south-eastern China , with Chinese actors and ...
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Reviews
Shadows in the Palace (Goong Nyeo)
Dir: Kim Mi-jung. South Korea 2007. 111 mins.To get a handle on Kim Mi-jung's impressive debut, imagine The Name of the Rose set it in a Korean royal court of the Joseon dynasty. The big difference, apart from the cultural transposition, is that this historical murder mystery takes place in ...
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Reviews
Flawless
Dir: Michael Radford. UK/Luxembourg 2007. 105 mins.A diamond heist thriller set in pre-swinging London circa 1960, Flawless is polished but hollow. It's not just the setting that is retro: the story itself feels a little old-fashioned, like The Day they Robbed the Bank of England or Rififi with fewer accomplices ...
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Reviews
Encarnacion
Dir: Anahi Berneri. Argentina 2007. 96 mins.A subtle character study of a once-famous TV actress who is past her sell-by date, Encarnacion confirms Anahi Berneri as one of the most promising of Argentina 's new wave of directors, after her well-received AIDS-themed debut A Year Without Love (2005). Though the ...
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Reviews
La Maison
Dir: Manuel Poirier. France 2007. 96 mins.French director Manuel Poirier delivers his most convincing feature since the bittersweet 1997 road-movie Western with La Maison, an emotionally delicate romantic comedy that once again features Poirier regular Sergi Lopez in the lead role. A rural house that's up for sale becomes a ...