All articles by Lee Marshall – Page 52
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Reviews
Stranger (Ono)
Dir:Malgosia Szumowska. Ger-Pol. 2005. 98mins.Thesecond full-length feature by Polish film-maker Malgosia Szumowska, Strangeris infused with the spirit of Kieslowski. But this slow, measured film about anunmarried girl who decides to go ahead with an unplanned pregnancy does notfeel derivative.Unsentimental,emotionally intelligent, it gets under the skin, adding up to more than ...
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Reviews
Night Watch (Nochnoy Dozor)
Dir: Timur Bekmambetov.Russia. 2004. 114mins.One of the mostimpressive things about Night Watch is the fact that such a stylish andtechnically polished fantasy movie - which can teach Hollywood a trick or twoabout squeezing a great look out of a tight budget - is it is 100% made inRussia. But, as ...
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Reviews
Mad Hot Ballroom
Dir: Marilyn Agrelo. US.2005. 114mins.An upbeat, feelgooddocumentary about kids from three New York public elementary schools whocompete in a citywide ballroom dancing competition, Mad Hot Ballroom isthis year's Spellbound, if with a less an ironic take on its subjectsthan the spelling-bee documentary and gutsier motivational verve.One of the hot tickets ...
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Reviews
Peacock (Kong Que)
Dir: Gu Changwei China.2005. 161mins.If further proof wereneeded of the technical and emotional maturity of the New Chinese cinema, then Peacocksupplies it. The story of three siblings in a provincial Chinese town at thetail end of the Cultural Revolution, this sensitive, deceptively simple filmtakes a while to establish its authority, ...
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Reviews
The Wayward Cloud (Tian Bian Yi Duo Hun)
Dir/scr: Tsai Ming-Liang.Fr-Tai. 2005. 111mins.Taiwan auteur TsaiMing-Liang revisits all his favourite themes in The Wayward Cloud, hiseighth feature. There's his water obsession - here figured in a nationwidewater shortage, which leads to a run on mineral water and watermelons. There'shis exploration of lonely characters lost in a big but strangely ...
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Reviews
Dumplings
Dir: Fruit Chan. HK.2005. 91mins.Described by the directoras a "post-feminist horror film", Dumplings is the full-length versionof a 30-minute short presented in Venice last year as part of Three Extremes,an omnibus film which also showcased twisted tales by Asian directors TakeshiMiike and Park Chan-Wook.Dumplings was easily the best thing about ...
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ReviewsThe Beat That My Heart Skipped (De Battre Mon Coeur S'Est Arrete)
Dir:Jacques Audiard. Fr. 2005. 107mins.
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News
All eyes on the Berlinale prizes
Asthe festival awaited news from the jury, the front-runners for prizes wereemerging from a competition that most critics agreed was stimulating, butuneven. Among the favourites were TheBeat That My Heart Skipped, Jacques Audiard's stylish homage to JamesToback's 1970s classic Fingers, which was tipped to net a best actorprize for Romain ...
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Reviews
Rabbit On the Moon (Conejo En La Luna)
Dir/scr: JorgeRamirez-Suarez. Mex-UK. 2005. 114mins.A tightly-paced politicalthriller, Rabbit On The Moon opened to peppy reviews and buoyant boxoffice takings on its home release in Mexico last October. A rare Mexico-UKco-production, it proves to be a hardworking film with some rough edges but asurefire genre instinct. Its overseas prospects will not ...
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Reviews
Tickets
Dirs:Ermanno Olmi, Abbas Kiarostami, Ken Loach. It-UK. 2005. 118mins.Three famous directors joining forces to direct one film is not new, but Ticketsdiffers from other recent "celebrity trio" showcases (Eros, ThreeExtremes) in that its film-makers share the same setting, some of the samecharacters and the same screenplay (or, in the case ...
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Reviews
Asylum
Dir:David Mackenzie. UK-Ire. 2005. 93mins.A dark, assured period piece about passion and madness, and the way societyrestrains them, Asylum is a much slicker product than Scottish directorDavid Mackenzie's previous outing, Young Adam.It has not had an easygestation: US distributor Paramount has been involved since Patrick McGrath'snovel was published in 1997; ...
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Reviews
Man To Man
UK-Fr-S Afr. 2004. 125mins.An uninspiring Berlinopener, Man To Man offers audiences an efficient but ultimately rathertrite Technicolor workout for their European post-colonial guilt.Regis Wargnier, director ofIndochine, here returns to a different jungle and a different colonialera with a story of three nineteenth-century Scottish scientists who use twocaptured African pygmies to ...
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Reviews
Smalltown, Italy (Provincia Meccanica)
LeeMarshall in RomeDir: Stefano Mordini. Italy. 2005. 107mins.The only Italian film in competition at Berlin this year, Smalltown,Italy depicts a bleak, post-industrial, dysfunctional Bel Paese that is along way from the tourist postcard cliches. Though the film is not without itsflaws, this is a promising debut for first-timer Mordini, a ...
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Reviews
Alla Luce Del Sole
Dir/scr: Roberto Faenza.It. 2005. 92mins.A brave voice speaks outagainst the Mafia; the voice gets silenced, but its message remains. AllaLuce Del Sole is not the first committed Italian biopic to fit this pitchline, and is unlikely to be the last.The most obvious differencebetween Roberto Faenza's new film and other examples ...
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Reviews
White Noise
Dir:Vinta Nanda. India-UK. 2004. 108mins.A litmus test of how Indian cinema is changing in the MTV and satellite era,White Noise has all the New Bollywood ingredients: a feisty, sexuallyliberated, working heroine, a hip and sensitive male love interest who hasbroken away from his traditional family, satirical digs at contemporary IndianTV ...
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Reviews
Eyes Of Crystal (Occhi Di Cristallo)
Dir: Eros Puglielli.It-Sp-UK. 2004. 110mins.The latestCattleya-Alchimia co-production (after Callas Forever, Don't Moveand I'm Not Scared), Eyes Of Crystal is a declared attempt torevive the horror-thriller genre that, in Italy, is virtually synonymous withDario Argento. Though uneven, second-time director Eros Puglielli's serialkiller yarn is a stylish and enjoyable essay in shock ...
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Reviews
Cafe Lumiere (Kohi Jikou)
Dir:Hou Hsiao-Hsien. Japan. 2004. 92mins.One of the most consistently interesting of Far Easternarthouse directors, Hou Hsiao-Hsien has a dedicated following on the festivalcircuit and a tiny film-buff fanbase in the real world. It's telling that not asingle Region 2 DVD of any of the Taiwanese director's films is currentlyavailable on ...
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Reviews
Low Life
Dir: Im Kwon-Taek.South Korea. 2004. 99 mins.Veteran South Korean filmmaker Im Kwon-Taek spotlights aturbulent period in the history of his country in this fast-paced saga, whichscreened in competition at Venice. But all that history is the film's mainproblem: international audiences, few of whom have a firm grasp of thepolitical landscape ...
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Reviews
Three Extremes
Dirs: Fruit Chan, ParkChan-Wook, Takashi Miike. HK-Jap-S Kor. 2004. 127mins.The second of twothree-part omnibus films at this year's Venice Film Festival (the other was theWong Kar-Wai/Soderbergh/Antonioni collaboration Eros), Three Extremes is a tasty showpiece forthree of Asia's hottest directors. In market terms, they are a well-chosen trio- far more so ...
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Reviews
The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 3: From Sark To Finish
Dir/scr:Peter Greenaway. Neth-Sp-Lux-Hung-It-Ger-Russ. 2004. 120mins.Youmay, to paraphrase a football commentator, have thought it was all over. Wellit is now. The final part of Peter Greenaway's seven-hour Tulse Luperopus, From Sark To Finish, unrolled at the Venice Film Festival. Itssubdued reception came as a marked contrast to the anticipatory buzz that ...
