Two of cinema’s key advantages as a medium are its mastery of space and time, and its impression of reality. These two traits are not necessarily related: after all, in reality we often find ourselves stuck in one space for hours on end. Unlike theatre, though, cinema offers the possibility to change location frequently, and [...]
Art films don’t have to be serious, but a lot of them are. Madness, suffering, death—at times these become depressingly familiar themes at film festivals. For this reason, the rare comedy film is welcome: comedy highlights of last year’s festivals were Matchmaking Mayor at Berlin and Sons of Norway in Reykjavik. Although you’re primed to [...]
Twenty years on, it is well worth revisiting Orlando, Sally Potter’s 1992 adaptation of a Virginia Woolf novel. Subtly convincing the audience that a person’s sex does not define them, the film achieves something which, in 2012, society is still far from accepting. Orlando never grows old: when the film begins in the 1600s, he [...]
“Melancholia” is Lars von Trier’s intelligent, melodramatic, achingly beautiful and wickedly funny new film. It tells the story of Justine (a transcendent Kirsten Dunst), a severe depressive, and her doting and practical sister, Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg). Justine’s depression takes the corporeal shape of a planet called Melancholia, which is on a steady collision course with [...]
How are you doing with your new year’s resolutions? Did you start this month with enthusiasm and optimism? We seem to enjoy this annual ritual of creating restrictions for ourselves. Some restrictions which seem to complement each other (like exercising and eating less chocolate) in fact serve to double the challenge (burning more calories while [...]
At the screening I attended of Jan Švankmajer’s Surviving Life (Theory and Practice) (2010), there were two walk-outs. I was tempted to follow, but my love of the great Czech animator’s previous work won out, making me want to experience, if not enjoy, every minute of his latest film. Newcomers to Švankmajer would do [...]
The London Iranian Film Festival is only in its second year, but already it boasts an enchanting and highly professional-looking trailer, as well as a varied line-up of films that blast open the old 80s stereotype of Iranian films as being superficially sweet studies of childhood in which social commentary was necessarily covert. It is [...]
This year London’s Czech Film Festival, ‘Made in Prague’ celebrated its 15th edition (10-27 November). The theme for 2011 was ‘Film and Literature’, and included hard-to-find retro delights such as the 1959 adaptation of Jaroslav Hašek’s comic novel, The Good Soldier Švejk, and Czech New Wave classics like Jiří Menzel’s Capricious Summer (1967), adapted from [...]
Going to the cinema is one of many everyday pleasures to be had in Paris: the typical variety of films on offer, particularly in the Latin Quarter, seems like a 365-day film festival. On any given day, you could see the latest Hollywood release, new independent films from around the world, or a range of [...]
I won’t give too much away about The Skin I Live In (La piel que habito): unlike Woody Allen’s films, an Almodóvar doesn’t come along every year, so it’s important to savour them. Psychologists at the University of San Diego recently discovered that people tended to enjoy short stories more when they already knew the [...]
DIFF 2012 Reviews: ‘Cinema Six,’ ‘Compliance,’ ‘Faith, Love and Whiskey’
Things I Don’t Understand (2011)
Jiří Trnka: Animation Retrospective
Lowlights of Cinélatino
Brevity Pays Off
‘A Secret World’ at Cinélatino
‘Future Lasts Forever’ at Sofia
Two Treatments of Italy’s Fascist Past
‘The Leopard’: novel, opera, but above all, film
We’ll always have ‘Casablanca’
