PSIFF 2018 FINAL LIST
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- DirectorDavid Gordon GreenStarsJake GyllenhaalTatiana MaslanyMiranda RichardsonStronger is the inspiring real life story of Jeff Bauman, an ordinary man who captured the hearts of his city and the world to become a symbol of hope after surviving the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.IF A FILM CAN BRING ME TO SOBBING SEVERAL TIMES, IT DESERVES MY HIGH RATING AND RECOMMENDATION. THE FILM CONSTRUCTION WAS DONE WELL, BUT IT WILL NOT KNOCK YOUR SOCKS OFF, BETTER THAN AVERAGE WORKS, BUT THE DEEP EMOTIONAL CONTENT OF EMOTIONAL RECOVERY IS THE HEART OF THIS FILM. THEY DID LEAVE OUT THE NASTY DETAILS OF THE BOSTON MARATHON EXPLOSION AND THE PERPETRATORS. THE PERF BY JAKE GYLLENHAAL IS DESERVANT OF OSCAR CONSIDERATION AND THE SCRIPT CO WRITTEN BY THE ACTUAL VICTIM JEFF BAUMAN. THE DIRECTOR DAVID GORDON GREEN ARRIVED ON THE SCENE WITH HIS DEBUT GEORGE WASHINGTON WHICH WAS AMAZING. HIS SUBSEQUENT WORK IS NOT KNOWN TO ME.
Writer (based on the book "Stronger" Green’s “Stronger,” in which Jeff Bauman, who lost both of his legs just above the knee in the Boston Marathon bombing, is trying to stand on new prosthetics for the first time. His face is pained and he mutters something about pins and needles, but everyone around him is just cheering, his mother shouting “You look awesome!” He doesn’t feel awesome. “Stronger” transcends your standard inspirational drama mostly through two fantastic performances, but also in the way it understands that trauma isn’t inspirational to the people who suffer it. During much of “Stronger,” Jeff will be told he’s a hero and reminded to stay “Boston Strong,” but will question again and again just what that means. And then Green’s film subverts its own message about the commodification of tragedy to become something even more remarkable—a statement on the value of images of survival. Some of it is too broad, and I wish the film dug a little deeper at times, but this is one of those rare inspirational films that earns its inspiration. - DirectorRuben ÖstlundStarsClaes BangElisabeth MossDominic WestA prestigious Stockholm museum's chief art curator finds himself in times of both professional and personal crisis as he attempts to set up a controversial new exhibit.PALME D'OR WINNER IS A MULTILEVEL FILM COVERING SO MANY CONTEMPORARY ISSUES, IT IS THE PERFECT FILM FOR CLUB DISCUSSION. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND SEEING THE FILM WITH A PAD AND PENCIL AND THEN READY YOURSELF FOR A WILD RIDE COVERING ART MUSEUMS, POLITICS, HYSTERIA, HUMOUR, CULTURE, SEXUAL HARASSMENT, FAMILIAL DYSFUNCTION, CULTURE....AND MANY MORE. THE STAR, CLAES BANG NOT KNOWN TO USA AUDIENCES I PREDICT WILL QUICKLY BECOME A HEART THROB AND SEEN IN MANY AMERICAN FILMS. RUBEN OSTLAND ACHIEVED INTERNATIONAL SUCCESS WITH FORCE MAJEURE ABOUT A FATHER WHO IN A STRESSFUL SITUATION ABANDONED HIS FAMILY TO SAVE HIS OWN ASS FROM AN AVALANCHE AT A SKI RESORT. THIS FILM ALSO EXPLORES FAMILY DYNAMICS. THE LEVEL OF SATIRE IS SO HIGH THAT IT RECEIVED MY 10/10 RATING. OUR WORLD IS SO OUT OF BALANCE IS EXPRESSED IN SO MANY WAYS.THE BOTTOM LINE: Modern society is mordantly weighed and found wanting.
Claes Bang and Elisabeth Moss star in Ruben Ostlund's satire tackling Swedish art, commerce, politics and national identity.
Swedish writer-director Ruben Ostlund takes modern society’s temperature and finds it dangerously overheated in the madly ambitious and frequently disquieting The Square. Following his unnerving 2014 international hit Force Majeure with a work that addresses some of the world’s pressing ills with very dark and queasy comedy, Ostlund juggles quite a few balls here, arguably a few too many to keep them all airborne for nearly two and a half hours; some significant cutting would unquestionably improve the film’s critical and commercial prospects. But it’s still a potent, disturbing work that explores the boundaries of political correctness, artistic liberty and free speech in provocative ways and should receive significant exposure internationally. White liberal guilt is probably a relatively new phenomenon in historically all-white Sweden, but the local version of that concept is what drives much of the drama here. Waves of immigrants over the last couple of decades have altered the face and dynamics of the citizenry, giving rise to inequities, mistrust and fears more familiar to other countries in the West. - DirectorMartin McDonaghStarsFrances McDormandWoody HarrelsonSam RockwellA mother personally challenges the local authorities to solve her daughter's murder when they fail to catch the culprit.THIS WEEKEND I HAVE SEEN 2 FILMS THAT RATED 10/10 AND ALSO VERY HIGH METACRITIC SCORES AND DESERVEDLY SO. IN A RECENT REVIEW I PREDICTED A BEST OSCAR FOR SAOIRSE RONAN,(LADY BIRD} WELL NOW I AM SAYING WRAP UP TWO WITH THE OTHER ONE FOR FRANCES MCDORMAND IN THIS FILM. SHE WAS AMAZING AND BOTH PERFS ARE WORTH YOUR TIME. Martin McDonagh IS A WONDERFUL DIRECTOR AND WRITER WITH A SHORT FILMOGRAPHY INCLUDING IN BRUGES AND 7 PSYCHOPATHS. I LOOK FORWARD TO HIS FUTURE WORK. SHARON AND I BOTH MARVELED AT HIS CREATIVITY AND UNPREDICTABILITY IT IS A WILD RIDE, BUT WELL WORTH YOUR TIME.
McDORMAND plays a grieving mother driven by an implacable thirst for justice in Martin McDonagh's darkly comedic drama, which also stars Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell. The roadside billboard is an iconic feature of the Americana landscape, with quaintly illustrated graphics welcoming travelers, offering hot coffee, comfort food and a warm hotel bed, or bidding farewell to those departing, often with a folksy "Y'all come back now"-type sentiment. There's no such reassurance in the tattered signage standing abandoned in the morning mist in the opening shots of Martin McDonagh's blisteringly funny and richly textured third feature, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Instead, they loom like desolate memories of a time of prosperity and happiness, suggesting a Walker Evans image of a Great Depression highway to a place beyond hope.
Accompanied on the soundtrack by the glorious voice of Renee Fleming singing Irish poet Thomas Moore's "The Last Rose of Summer," set to a melancholy traditional Celtic tune, that image catches the eye of Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand), and from deep within the world of infinite pain and anger she inhabits, a plan takes shape. After the entertainingly larkish but low-caloric carnage of Seven Psychopaths, McDonagh returns here to the peak form of his debut feature In Bruges, and of his best work for the stage. A stupendous showcase for the formidable gifts of McDormand that also provides plum roles for Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell, this is a corrosively humorous drama of festering injustice, Shakespearean rage, grave reckoning and imperfect redemption, which unfolds with the epic dimensions of a classic Western showdown. - DirectorClaire DenisStarsJuliette BinocheXavier BeauvoisPhilippe KaterineIsabelle, Parisian artist, divorced mother, is looking for love, true love at last.A WOMAN FILMAKER AND STAR, 2 INCREDIBLE TALENTS EXPLORING SEX AND AGEING. INCREDIBLE TALENTS THAT THE MATURING LADY WILL APPRECIATE. TAKE YOUR G.F., NOT YOUR HUSBAND OR B.F.
“Like in a tacky bedroom farce?” a middle-aged lothario asks, bewildered, when an angry lover throws him out midway through “Let the Sunshine In.” He’s in the wrong, though he has reason to be incredulous: He’s in a Claire Denis movie, after all, and “tacky bedroom farce” is about as far from her highly refined repertoire as it’s possible to get. Luckily, it remains so by the end of this exquisitely judged romantic comedy, which maps out the transient pleasures, pitfalls and emotional culs-de-sac of mid-life dating with all the close human scrutiny and hot-blooded sensual detail of her sterner dramatic work. Perfectly small rather than slight, and radiantly carried by Juliette Binoche — in a light-touch tour de force to be filed alongside her work in Kiarostami’s “Certified Copy” — this turns out to be a subtler departure than it outwardly appears for Denis, most evoking her other Parisienne drifting-hearts study, “Friday Night,” in its bittersweet tone. If the humor in “Let the Sunshine In” is slightly amped up by its maker’s usual standards, it hardly reaches for its chuckles: Denis, like the best artists, knows all human life is a comedy, albeit with an unhappy ending. That gentle wryness, coupled with an ensemble heavy on French A-listers, should make this one of her more commercially viable outings following its premiere as the opening film of the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes. (Four years after the equally rigorous, tonally opposite “Bastards” played in Un Certain Regard, “Let the Sunshine In” again invites the question of just what this modern master must do to get a Competition slot.) - DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsMeryl StreepTom HanksSarah PaulsonA cover-up spanning four U.S. Presidents pushes the country's first female newspaper publisher and her editor to join an unprecedented battle between press and government.THE BEST ONSTAGE FILM INTERVIEW EVER WITH STEVEN SPIELBERG, TOM HANKS AND MERYL STREEP DELIVERING VERY HONEST AND IN DEPTH RESPONSES. THE AUDIENCE WAS ALSO AMAZING SHOUTS OF APPROVAL AND CLAPPING WHEN TODAYS IDIOCY IN D.C. IS SHOWN IN THE ANTI VIETNAM LIES. 85 METASCORE IS RIGHT ON. DO NOT MISS THIS GEM.....TO ME THE BEST OF THE YEAR
6 DECEMBER 2017 • 2:00PM
Dir: Steven Spielberg; Starring: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Bob Odenkirk, Carrie Coon, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Matthew Rhys, Alison Brie. Cert tbc, 115 mins.
The man in the White House is mad. In fact, scratch that: he’s furious. From the camera’s vantage point outside in the dark, he seems literally dwarfed by his office – the tall, oblong windows of the West Wing don’t frame him so much as enclose him, as a jam jar would a toad. But while his stature might be lacking, his wrath is outsize, and as we listen in, he rants about the wayward media in a surly, anxious rasp.
The year is 1971, and the President we’re spying on is Richard Nixon, but put a smartphone in his paw and it could just as easily be… well, you don’t need me to spell it out. This tremendous new film from Steven Spielberg takes care not to flag up its historical resonance too enthusiastically. But its...SIMILARITY IS OBVIOUS - DirectorJoe WrightStarsGary OldmanLily JamesKristin Scott ThomasIn May 1940, the fate of World War II hangs on Winston Churchill, who must decide whether to negotiate with Adolf Hitler, or fight on knowing that it could mean the end of the British Empire.GARY OLDMAN IS SPECTACULAR AND DESERVANT OF THE BEST ACTOR OSCAR. THE WHOLE FILM IS SO WELL DONE.....SETS, PERFS, TOGRAPHY, DIRECTION 75 METASCORE AND WORTH IT. NOT TO BE MISSED. SAW THIS FILM ON MY OWN OUTSIDE OF THE FESTIVAL
Hidden behind fake jowls and a receding hairline, Gary Oldman delivers one of the great performances of his career as Winston Churchill. With all due respect to Christopher Nolan, no filmmaker has captured the evacuation of Dunkirk better than Joe Wright, who evoked the sheer scale of England’s finest hour via a five-minute tracking shot in “Atonement.” Now, with “Darkest Hour,” Wright returns to show the other side of the operation. Set during the crucial early days of Winston Churchill’s first term as prime minister, this talky yet stunningly cinematic history lesson balances the great orator’s public triumphs with more vulnerable private moments of self-doubt, elevating the inner workings of British government into a compelling piece of populist entertainment. Whereas Nolan’s “Dunkirk” so thrillingly illustrated the military rescue at Dunkirk, all but banishing Churchill to a newspaper article read aloud at the end of the film, “Darkest Hour” spends nearly every scene at the prime minister’s side — except for the first couple, during which Churchill is dramatically absent, represented only by the bowler hat left behind in his empty seat in the House of Commons - DirectorSantiago MitreStarsWalter AndradeRicardo DarínDolores FonziAt a summit for Latin American presidents in Chile where the region's geopolitical strategies and alliances are in discussion, Argentine president Hernán Blanco endures political and family drama that will force him to face his own demons.FROM ARGENTINA COMES A HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT FOR ME AS THIS IS THE FILMAKING TEAM THAT RECENTLY CREATED WILD TALES THAT I HAVE SEEN 4 TIMES. IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN IT, THEN YOUR ARE TRULY MISSING OUT ON A GREAT ONE. THE SUMMIT PREMISE STARTED OUT WELL THEN DETERIORATED INTO A PSYCHODRAMA WHICH WAS LAME AT BEST. IF THEY HAD STUCK TO THE THEME OF POMPOUS EGOCENTRIC POLITICIANS GATHERING FOR A SUMMIT OF S. AMERICAN LEADERS DISCUSSING AN OIL TREATY, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN TIMELY AND APPROPRIATE TO TODAYS UGLY POLITICS, BUT IT FAILED TO MAKE THE GRADE. TECH ASPECTS WERE ALL FIRST CLASS AND THE CHILE SKI RESORT WAS SPECTACULAR.
Back on Earth (or at least in the official selection), the talented Argentine director Santiago Mitre, who won the top prize at Critics' Week in 2015 for "Paulina," appeared in Un Certain Regard this year with "The Summit," a political thriller that takes an unexpected detour into Hitchcock's "Spellbound" territory. The film is set during a summit of South American leaders, who have convened to discuss an oil alliance. The politically malleable president of Argentina (Ricardo Darín), already facing exposure for corruption, has another problem when his daughter, Marina (Dolores Fonzi, from "Paulina"), suffers a psychiatric episode. A doctor (Alfredo Castro, from Pablo Larraín's films) puts her under hypnosis, and suddenly she has memories of events from his life of which she could have no knowledge. Is someone pulling the strings? Maybe not with respect to Marina's head space, but Christian Slater shows up as a United States state department representative who attempts to influence the negotiations. Like "Paulina," Mitre's film doesn't entirely coalesce, but it shows a certain daring in fusing two genres that don't normally go together. - DirectorOded RazStarsGuy AmirHanan SavyonGal AmitaiThe biggest Israeli blockbuster since 1986 . Steve and Chuma , two criminals are the sole survivors of a terrorist attack at a restaurant in Jerusalem. They decide to change their ways and become flesh and blood angels. They go on a journey of wish fulfillment for people who write requests on paper and put between the sacred stones of the Wailing Wall.TO ME THE ABOVE WAS ENTERTAINING BUT VERY LAME TV SITCOM.....MISSING ALL OF THE ATTRIBUTES OF EXCELLENT CINEMA AND THAT IS WHY I GO TO FESTIVALS. I PREDICT THAT IT WILL BECOME THE AUDIENCE FAVORITE AT PSIFF 2018.
steve&chuma , two criminals are the sole survivors of a terrorist attack at a restaurant in Jerusalem. They decide to change their ways and become flesh and blood angels. They go on a journey of wish fulfillment for people who write requests on paper and put between the sacred stones of the Wailing Wall. - DirectorDaniela ThomasStarsAdriano CarvalhoLuana NastasSandra CorveloniBrazil 1821. A rich cattle herder finds out that his wife dies in labor. Forced to live in the property with numerous African slaves, he marries his wife's niece. But he returns to droving, leaving his wife behind alone with the slaves.A MAGNIFICENT CANNES FEST AWARDEE FROM BRAZIL/PORTUGAL. THE CINEMATOGRAPHY IS EXTRAORDINARY AS ARE MOST OF THE TECH CREDITS. EACH FRAME OF THE FILM IS SUITABLE TO BE MOUNTED ON YOUR LIVING ROOM WALL. THE NARRATIVE CAN BE CONFUSING, NEVER THE LESS REFLECTED THE HARDSHIPS OF FARMING AND BIGOTRY OF THE TIMES.
A backlands tragedy set in early 19th century colonial Brazil, Daniela Thomas' slow-burn slavery drama unfolds on a luminous black-and-white widescreen canvas.
As a member of the key creative team behind the Rio Olympics opening ceremony last year, Daniela Thomas helped to conceive a celebration of Brazilian cultural identity that refused to gloss over the shameful chapters of the past. One of the most powerful sequences in that arena spectacle was the arrival of African slaves. Pushing stylized plows while shuffling along on shackled feet, they gradually integrated in the Olympics pageant with indigenous Brazilians, European colonists and subsequent immigration waves to form the ethnically complex mestizo population of today.
In Thomas’ darkly oneiric epic, Vazante, the director and her screenwriting partner Beto Amaral take a deeper plunge back into history to examine once again the roots of that mosaic of miscegenation in a context far removed from civilization, bristling with the tensions of violence, subjugation and forced cross-cultural cohabitation.
Set in 1821, when Brazil was on the verge of independence, it's a slow-burn drama with a fairly austere attitude toward conventional exposition, dialogue and character development, which will confine it to the commercial margins. But the film is also transfixing in its formal rigor, impressive craft and striking visual beauty. Those factors, plus its searing depiction of racial cruelty and the weight given to its female characters in a patriarchal world, should spark some specialized distribution. Photographed by Inti Briones in the inky textures of black and white, Vazante was shot on rugged locations in the craggy Diamantina Mountains that evoke the Wild West. Loose, handheld camerawork tracks mule trains through dense vegetation, composed interiors are illuminated by period-appropriate light sources, and the novelistic action is punctuated by imposing shots of malevolent skies that look like the charcoal drawings of a disturbed mind. They give the illusion of magnifying the already expansive widescreen frame to twice its size. - DirectorRyôta NakanoStarsRie MiyazawaHana SugisakiAoi ItôA strict, but caring mother has an awakening when she is told she has cancer and it is terminal. She has a few months. She needs to complete her tasks in that short time frame.THIS IS TRULY A BEAUTIFUL HEARTWARMING FILM THAT EXPLORES THE HUMAN CONDITION MAGNIFICENTLY, BUT BE PREPARED TO SOB MANY TIMES.....BRING 3 BOXES OF KLEENEX. THE CHARACTERS ARE BEAUTIFULLY DEFINED AND SO REFLECTIVE OF THE RESPECTFUL AND HONEST JAPANESE TRADITION. EVERY ONE OF MY READERS WILL BE HAPPY TO HAVE SEEN THIS ENJOYABLE FILM.
All four principal actors shine in this Ryota Nakano-directed film about a dying woman’s determination to bring her family together.
Following her impressive comeback in 2014’s Pale Moon , once-controversial actress Rie Miyazawa gives a heart-wrenching performance in Her Love Boils Bathwater as a terminally ill matriarch determined to reconcile her splintered family in her last remaining weeks.
Ryota’s directorial style is characterized by intuitiveness. The director also has a desire for genuineness – there are no theatrics or hysterics in the film. His characters are flawed, selfish, and inconsistent just like any ordinary human being. Those ‘qualities’ made them real and affecting - DirectorAndrey ZvyagintsevStarsMaryana SpivakAleksey RozinMatvey NovikovA couple going through a divorce must team up to find their son who has disappeared during one of their bitter arguments.THE MAIN THEME BEING THE TRAUMA INFLICTED ON CHILDREN WHEN PARENTS ARGUE. A MAGNIFICENT FILM THAT WILL BREAK YOUR HEART. OUR GREATEST TREASURES IN LIFE ARE OUR CHILDREN AND DESERVE OUR HUMANITY NOT OUR ANGER. THIS EXCELLENT FILM HIGHLIGHTS THIS PREMISE. MCT 90 VERY HIGH
The pristine and merciless new film from Andrey Zvyagintsev begins out in the cold, and its temperature just keeps dropping from there.
The opening scene is a forest somewhere in the environs of Saint Petersburg: snow falls on a river as dark as tar, while bare and twisted charcoal-coloured trees claw at its banks. Into this fairy-tale backdrop wanders an innocent child in a red coat: 12-year-old Alyosha (Matvey Novikov), whom we watch leaving school with a gentle smile on his face.
Loveless, which screened in competition at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday [May 17] is far from the first film to use that storybook garment as an ill omen for the journey ahead – Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now put it to famously devastating use – although we notice as the boy keeps walking that the leaves and ground are still brown, and winter must be some way off yet. The door swings back to silently reveal the boy behind it, his face clenched up in grief
Not far off, mind. At home are his parents, Zhenya (Mariana Spivak) and Boris (Alexey Rozin), who are in the middle of a poisonous divorce. Both have new lovers they’re ready to nest with – Boris’s is already pregnant – and though it’s never quite spelled out, it’s clear that Alyosha is the only thing preventing the couple from making a clean break. - DirectorFatih AkinStarsNuman AcarAdam BousdoukosDiane KrugerKatja's life collapses after the deaths of her husband and son in a bomb attack. After a time of mourning and injustice, Katja seeks revenge.FATIH AKIN'S BEST FILM SINCE HIS MASTERPIECE HEAD ON. THIS IS A 10 OUT OF 10 IN EVERY SENSE. PRODUCTION LEVELS ARE OUTSTANDING AND DIANE KRUGER(INGLORIOUS BASTARDS) HAS ALREADY WON BEST ACTRESS HONORS AT CANNES AND IN MY OPINION RATES AN OSCAR NOM THIS YEAR NEXT TO SAORISE RONEN AND MC FARLAND, BUT SINCE IT IS A GERMAN FILM, WILL BE IGNORED THIS FILM TO ME IS ONE OF THE BEST OF THE YEAR SO FAR AND HAS WON THE GOLDEN GLOBES BEST F.L. FILM AND IS SHORTLISTED FOR OSCAR. THERE ARE MANY LEVELS FOR THIS FILM AND REVENGE SHOULD BE CONSIDERED. ROCCO WAS ADORABLE. SAD...
First off: Fatih Akin’s “The Cut” was an aberration, as we all suspected. The director celebrated for his edgy takes on intriguing characters more or less returns with “In the Fade,” a well-constructed, at times moving story of a Hamburg woman seeking justice after the murder of her Kurdish husband and son by a couple of Neo-Nazis. “More or less” because the excellent first quarter gives way to a relatively standard-issue though handsomely produced legal drama with several stock characters and a script that feels too guided by the presumed requirements of mainstream cinema. Diane Kruger’s powerhouse performance in her first German-language production goes a long way toward compensating for the narrative’s dip into overly crystalline waters, and international sales have been unsurprisingly brisk given the film’s incontrovertible general appeal. - DirectorZaza UrushadzeStarsDimitri TatishviliJoseph KhvedelidzeSophia SebiskveradzePriest Giorgi, a former Film Director, is sent to serve the small parish in the mountain village. To bring villagers closer to church he starts showing films there. After the screening of the first picture - "Some Like It Hot" - the audience imply that the local music teacher Lili looks exactly like Marilyn Monroe. After meeting Lili, Father Giorgi's balance between cleric and secular world starts to quiver - the woman is extremely sexy and the temptation is difficult to resist.WHAT ATTRACTED ME MOST TO SEE THIS NICE LITTLE FILM WAS THE LOCATION.....ESTONIA/GEORGIA WHERE I VISITED ON A RECENT BALKAN CRUISE. THE PRIEST WAS A WONDERFUL CHARACTER AS WERE MOST OF THE VILLAGE PEOPLE, EXCEPT ONE VICIOUS FEMME FATALE. THE PRODUCTION VALUES WERE EXCELLENT AND THE NARRATIVE KEPT US INVOLVED, AND THE CINEMATOGRAPHY WAS CAREFULLY CREATED. A MINIMALIST BUT REWARDING FILM.
Priest Giorgi (Dmitri Tatishvili, also seen this year in Urushadze's daughter Ana's Sarajevo winner Scary Mother [+]), a former student of film directing, is sent to a parish in a remote mountain village, together with his assistant Valiko (Joseph Khvedelidze in his first feature-film role). Giorgi feels the need to gather the community around the church, and his first promotional move is to screen films for the villagers. They take an old storage house, put up a screen and a projector, and start showing classics – the first being Some Like It Hot. The villagers love it, and one of them mentions that their local music teacher Lili (Sophia Sebiskveradze) looks a lot like Marilyn Monroe.
Indeed she does, as Giorgi and particularly Valiko note as they meet her for the first time. Soon, Lili starts helping out in the church after the regular sacristan's husband dies, and the priest starts feeling an attraction unbecoming of his position. This will, along with a subplot concerning a student of Lili's, lead to a rather dark and unexpected incident. - DirectorTatiana HuezoThe emotional journeys of two women victimized by corruption and injustice in Mexico and of the love, dignity and resistance that allowed them to survive.MAGNIFICENT IMAGES WITH INCOHERENT BABBLE REVEALING THE NASTINESS OF THE MEXICAN JUDICIAL SYSTEM....CORRUPTION TO THE MAX. MCT 76 HIGHER THAN MY RATING. NO WONDER SO MANY MEXICANS FLEE TO USA, AND THE WALL WILL NOT STOP THEM. AND I DO NOT BLAME THEM FOR NOT WANTING BETTER LIVES FOR THEM AND THEIR FAMILIES. MY GRANDFATHER DID THE SAME THING FOR HIS FAMILY IN 1906 AND SO TO OUR GOOD FORTUNE.
Mexican-Salvadorean helmer Tatiana Huezo traces the stories of two women whose lives, through no fault of their own, became incomprehensible nightmares. What if something terrible happened and the authorities were unable or unwilling to provide recourse? The beautifully crafted and creative documentary “Tempestad” traces the stories of two women whose lives, through no fault of their own, became utter, incomprehensible nightmares. As in her previous documentary, the prizewinning “The Tiniest Place,” Mexican-Salvadorean helmer Tatiana Huezo superimposes her subjects’ recollections over lyrical images that complement the emotions conveyed by their voices. Starting out slow but accumulating power as the intercutting comes into focus, the pic is a sure bet for human-rights-themed and femme-centered festivals, and should have a long shelf life in home formats. - DirectorValeska GrisebachStarsMeinhard NeumannReinhardt WetrekSyuleyman Alilov LetifovGerman construction workers building a dam near a Bulgarian village interact with the locals, and soon the troubles arise both with the locals and among themselves.THE PREMISE AND TECH PRODUCTION VALUES WAS REALLY QUITE GOOD, THEN THEY RAN OUT OF ENERGY AND IT FELL FLAT ON ITS FACE. DISAPPOINTING. METASCORE 76 SO A DARLING OF THE CRITICS, BUT NOT ME.
“War is war. Life is life. You can’t lump them together,” says a burly construction worker early on in Valeska Grisebach’s Western, immediately invoking the dichotomy between civility and savagery at the heart of the genre referenced by the film’s title. The seasoned audience member will recognize the hollowness in such a statement, as the most ageless westerns have proven time and again that violence—physical and otherwise—is the engine of civilizing progress. And though blood is scarcely spilled in Western, the film nevertheless teems with nervous tension as a German construction crew descends on a modest Bulgarian village to conduct work on a hydroelectric power plant in the hills nearby. In a supremely understated style, Grisebach sets this all-too-modern scenario in motion and charts the ways in which power and privilege unconsciously manifest themselves, turning a boilerplate engineering initiative into a loaded culture clash.
The film’s grizzled lone-wolf protagonist, the contract worker Meinhard (Meinhard Nuemann), first encounters ingrained animosity when he heads to town to procure cigarettes and is refused service by a hissing convenience store clerk. Because Meinhard is from Germany, his mere presence is enough to set the woman off, as his country’s occupation of Bulgaria during World War II is evidently still fresh on her mind. A stoic introvert and avowed pacifist, Meinhard avoids doing anything to escalate the situation, and generally resists the bullish negligence of co-workers like Vincent (Reinhardt Wetrek), who commemorates his troupe’s arrival by harassing a woman from town hoping to enjoy an afternoon swim near the work site. Meinhard’s low-key demeanor increasingly frustrates his unprincipled peers, who seek to cultivate a rah-rah boys’ club with overt nationalist sentiments, and expect the same when they learn of Meinhard’s history as a Legionnaire. - DirectorManuel Martín CuencaStarsJavier GutiérrezMaría LeónAdelfa CalvoA man obsessed with the idea of writing "high literature" starts to cause conflicts around him to write about it.THIS FILMAKER HAS LEARNED HIS CRAFT FROM PEDRO ALMOLDOVAR AND MAKES AN EXCELLENT FILM, ALTHOUGH THE ENDING FOR ME WAS NOT AS SATISFYING AS I WOULD HAVE LIKED, BUT TYPICAL OF PEDRO. WELL SHOT, DIRECTED AND OKAY CINEMATOGRAPHY. MANY SPANISH OSCAR EQUIVALENT AWARDS
Manuel Martin Cuenta, who has long had a cool eye for a lonely guy in films including Half Of Oscar and Cannibal, returns to the theme with an archly satirical tone in his latest film. Álvaro (Javier Gutiérrez who British audiences are most likely to remember from thriller Marshlands) is short in stature and on talent. A notary in a cramped office, his days are accompanied by a constant drone of conversation from his colleague, punctuated only by the squeak of a fan. Despite being desperate to pen a novel of high literature (it's unlikely Álvaro would see himself doing anything so cheap as 'writing'), he is in the shadow of his wife, who already has a successful page-turner to her name - a fact that everyone from his writing teacher (Antonio de la Torre, enjoying himself immensely in a rare comedy role) to his co-workers is constantly reminding him of. When he is forced to take leave from his job and discovers his wife is having an affair in short measure, Álvaro sees it as the moment to make or break his career - and possibly his life- moving into an apartment block.
After being berated for not keeping things 'real' in his class, Álvaro views the move to his new flat as an opportunity and begins to treat many of the block's other occupants as characters, just waiting to be manipulated. Drawing on information from the building supervisor (Adelfa Calvo, stealing every scene she is in), coaxed out of her via increasing amounts of attention, he also insinuates himself into the life of his elderly, borderline fascist neighbour, who has some not-so carefully guarded secrets, and starts recording arguments between his Mexican near neighbours Enrique (Tenoch Huerta) and Irene (Adriana Paz), whose kitchen conversations play out within earshot of his bathroom. - DirectorRobert GuédiguianStarsAriane AscarideJean-Pierre DarroussinGérard MeylanThree grown children gathered at the picturesque villa of their dying father reflect on where they are, who they have become, and what they have inherited.THIS DELIGHTFUL FILM FROM THE MARSEILLE REGION IS LIKE A FAMILY REUNION, AS THE DIRECTOR AND HIS PERFORMERS REUNITE. I HAVE SEEN ALL OF THEIR FILMS GOING BACK TO THE EARLY 90'S. FILLED WITH FAMILY DYNAMICS ROMANCE, AND CAPTURING ALL THE GOOD THAT LOVE OF FAMILY CAN BRING. THE NON RELATED FISHERMAN CONFESSES HIS LOVE FOR THE AGEING ACTRESS AND FINALLY ALLOWED TO CONSUMMATE HIS LOVE FOLLOWED BY THE GREATEST SHIT-EATING GRIN EVER FILMED. THIS DIRECTOR HAS A LONG LIST OF CINEMA SUCCESS AND SHOULD NOT BE MISSED.
But mostly the film unfolds in the present tense, with generous — sometimes too generous — time allotted to each of the siblings’ personal stocktaking. Added into the mix are new love interests, for Angèle in the form of young fisherman Benjamin (Robinson Stévenin, another Guédiguian regular), and for Bérangère in the shape of Yvan (Yann Trégouët), the son of Martin (Jacques Boudet) and Suzanne (Geneviève Mnich), the aged couple who are Maurice’s only remaining neighbors, and whose dignified but tragic fate provides the film with its most deeply affecting sequence. There is scarcely an unconvincing note struck throughout, but some of the relationships are almost too carefully mapped out, contributing to a repetitive feel, especially in the baggy middle portion of the film. We probably don’t need quite as much of the lovestruck Benjamin’s theatrically-inclined ardor for Angèle, and Joseph has the mordant wit of the depressive, but also tends to rather tediously reorient innocuous conversations toward worker’s rights and the class system, without there being a particularly sharp point about bourgeois values to be made. Guédiguian is too good at communicating his own interest in his characters to make the slightly complacent pacing that much of an issue, but individual scenes do often feel like they could be sharpened to a finer cutting edge and the film would be a more assertive experience as a result.
Perhaps none of those extraneous moments would seem like time inefficiently spent, though, if it weren’t for Guédiguian’s most puzzling authorial choice: to leave so late the introduction of the story’s most dramatic new element — the discovery of three migrant children, two boys and a girl like the siblings themselves, hiding out in the scrubby woods above the village. This worldview-challenging and priority-changing development is rich with dramatic potential, and thematically on point (they came from the sea that took Blanche away; they are the promise of renewal when so much is dying back). And so its 11th-hour appearance feels like an opportunity missed at best, and at worst like the refugee crisis is being used as narrative spice for the later-life-crises of a comparatively well-to-do white French family.
The inherently picturesque location provides some postcard-ready vistas, but mostly Pierre Milon’s camerawork is unfussy to the point of unremarkable. But then Guédiguian is more of a classical storyteller than a formal stylist and for the most part that serves the film well, investing us its affectionate, fully inhabited portrayals and its wide-view vision of life’s cyclical nature with minimal distraction. It makes “The House by the Sea,” for all its mildness, a gently defiant affirmation that the ebb will always be followed by the flow. - DirectorJan SverákStarsJan TrískaOldrich KaiserTereza RambaA boy and his family leave Prague during World War II and move to a small village called Slavonice. There, he meets distant relatives and adjusts to a new way of life.THIS DELIGHTFUL CZECH FILM WILL REMINDS ONE OF KOLYA, A WONDERFUL FILM ABOUT CHILDREN MANY YEARS AGO. IT STARTS OUT VERY SLOW, BUT STAY WITH IT AND YOU WILL EXPERIENCE INCREDIBLE JOY. THE KIDS IN THIS FILM ARE JUST GREAT. THE PRODUCTION IS FIRST CLASS AND THE PERFS ARE WONDERFULLY DIRECTED. IT IS A PERIOD PIECE FROM A VILLAGE ABOUT 1945 AS WORLD WAR 2 COMES TO AN END.
Based on pere Zdenek’s autobiographical novel, and directed, written and produced by Jan, it describes the wonder of growing up through the eyes of an alert 8-year-old boy whose city family has been forced into rural exile during World War II. Quickly adapting to country life, Eda (luminously played by bright-eyed, bushy-tailed newcomer Alois Grec) turns from precious Prague boy to larking country lad with a new set of bumpkin pals. An able touch of sardonic East European humor keeps things smart and light, even if real drama is notable by its absence. The Portobello release will be entertaining audiences in Palm Springs soon after its Dubai bow.
It's worth noting that Barefoot is a bona fide prequel to the director’s 1991 feature debut, The Elementary School, which finds Eda as a 10-year-old attending school in 1945. The Oscar-nominated earlier film also is based on a story and screenplay by the elder Zdenek, who played Eda’s father. This interwoven web of personal memories and characters creates a unique feeling of continuity in these works, for those who are familiar with them. - DirectorSam GarbarskiStarsMoritz BleibtreuAntje TraueTim SeyfiDavid Berman and his friends, all Holocaust survivors, have only one purpose: to go to America as soon as possible. For this they need money. Close to his aim, David is not only deprived of his savings but also overtaken by his shady past.A TRULY ORIGINAL NICELY MADE ABOUT SHADY JEWISH HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR BUSINESS MEN WHO WILL SUCCEED ON UNSAVORY TRANSACTIONS. ULTIMATELY THEY ALL WANT TO GO TO AMERICA.
- DirectorZaza UrushadzeStarsDimitri TatishviliJoseph KhvedelidzeSophia SebiskveradzePriest Giorgi, a former Film Director, is sent to serve the small parish in the mountain village. To bring villagers closer to church he starts showing films there. After the screening of the first picture - "Some Like It Hot" - the audience imply that the local music teacher Lili looks exactly like Marilyn Monroe. After meeting Lili, Father Giorgi's balance between cleric and secular world starts to quiver - the woman is extremely sexy and the temptation is difficult to resist.WHAT ATTRACTED ME MOST TO SEE THIS NICE LITTLE FILM WAS THE LOCATION.....ESTONIA/GEORGIA WHERE I VISITED ON A RECENT BALKAN CRUISE. THE PRIEST WAS A WONDERFUL CHARACTER AS WERE MOST OF THE VILLAGE PEOPLE, EXCEPT ONE VICIOUS FEMME FATALE. THE PRODUCTION VALUES WERE EXCELLENT AND THE NARRATIVE KEPT US INVOLVED, AND THE CINEMATOGRAPHY WAS CAREFULLY CREATED. A MINIMALIST BUT REWARDING FILM.
Priest Giorgi (Dmitri Tatishvili, also seen this year in Urushadze's daughter Ana's Sarajevo winner Scary Mother [+]), a former student of film directing, is sent to a parish in a remote mountain village, together with his assistant Valiko (Joseph Khvedelidze in his first feature-film role). Giorgi feels the need to gather the community around the church, and his first promotional move is to screen films for the villagers. They take an old storage house, put up a screen and a projector, and start showing classics – the first being Some Like It Hot. The villagers love it, and one of them mentions that their local music teacher Lili (Sophia Sebiskveradze) looks a lot like Marilyn Monroe.
Indeed she does, as Giorgi and particularly Valiko note as they meet her for the first time. Soon, Lili starts helping out in the church after the regular sacristan's husband dies, and the priest starts feeling an attraction unbecoming of his position. This will, along with a subplot concerning a student of Lili's, lead to a rather dark and unexpected incident. - DirectorTatiana HuezoThe emotional journeys of two women victimized by corruption and injustice in Mexico and of the love, dignity and resistance that allowed them to survive.MAGNIFICENT IMAGES WITH INCOHERENT BABBLE REVEALING THE NASTINESS OF THE MEXICAN JUDICIAL SYSTEM....CORRUPTION TO THE MAX. MCT 76 HIGHER THAN MY RATING. NO WONDER SO MANY MEXICANS FLEE TO USA, AND THE WALL WILL NOT STOP THEM. AND I DO NOT BLAME THEM FOR NOT WANTING BETTER LIVES FOR THEM AND THEIR FAMILIES. MY GRANDFATHER DID THE SAME THING FOR HIS FAMILY IN 1906 AND SO TO OUR GOOD FORTUNE.
Mexican-Salvadorean helmer Tatiana Huezo traces the stories of two women whose lives, through no fault of their own, became incomprehensible nightmares. What if something terrible happened and the authorities were unable or unwilling to provide recourse? The beautifully crafted and creative documentary “Tempestad” traces the stories of two women whose lives, through no fault of their own, became utter, incomprehensible nightmares. As in her previous documentary, the prizewinning “The Tiniest Place,” Mexican-Salvadorean helmer Tatiana Huezo superimposes her subjects’ recollections over lyrical images that complement the emotions conveyed by their voices. Starting out slow but accumulating power as the intercutting comes into focus, the pic is a sure bet for human-rights-themed and femme-centered festivals, and should have a long shelf life in home formats. - DirectorValeska GrisebachStarsMeinhard NeumannReinhardt WetrekSyuleyman Alilov LetifovGerman construction workers building a dam near a Bulgarian village interact with the locals, and soon the troubles arise both with the locals and among themselves.THE PREMISE AND TECH PRODUCTION VALUES WAS REALLY QUITE GOOD, THEN THEY RAN OUT OF ENERGY AND IT FELL FLAT ON ITS FACE. DISAPPOINTING. METASCORE 76 SO A DARLING OF THE CRITICS, BUT NOT ME.
“War is war. Life is life. You can’t lump them together,” says a burly construction worker early on in Valeska Grisebach’s Western, immediately invoking the dichotomy between civility and savagery at the heart of the genre referenced by the film’s title. The seasoned audience member will recognize the hollowness in such a statement, as the most ageless westerns have proven time and again that violence—physical and otherwise—is the engine of civilizing progress. And though blood is scarcely spilled in Western, the film nevertheless teems with nervous tension as a German construction crew descends on a modest Bulgarian village to conduct work on a hydroelectric power plant in the hills nearby. In a supremely understated style, Grisebach sets this all-too-modern scenario in motion and charts the ways in which power and privilege unconsciously manifest themselves, turning a boilerplate engineering initiative into a loaded culture clash.
The film’s grizzled lone-wolf protagonist, the contract worker Meinhard (Meinhard Nuemann), first encounters ingrained animosity when he heads to town to procure cigarettes and is refused service by a hissing convenience store clerk. Because Meinhard is from Germany, his mere presence is enough to set the woman off, as his country’s occupation of Bulgaria during World War II is evidently still fresh on her mind. A stoic introvert and avowed pacifist, Meinhard avoids doing anything to escalate the situation, and generally resists the bullish negligence of co-workers like Vincent (Reinhardt Wetrek), who commemorates his troupe’s arrival by harassing a woman from town hoping to enjoy an afternoon swim near the work site. Meinhard’s low-key demeanor increasingly frustrates his unprincipled peers, who seek to cultivate a rah-rah boys’ club with overt nationalist sentiments, and expect the same when they learn of Meinhard’s history as a Legionnaire. - DirectorManuel Martín CuencaStarsJavier GutiérrezMaría LeónAdelfa CalvoA man obsessed with the idea of writing "high literature" starts to cause conflicts around him to write about it.THIS FILMAKER HAS LEARNED HIS CRAFT FROM PEDRO ALMOLDOVAR AND MAKES AN EXCELLENT FILM, ALTHOUGH THE ENDING FOR ME WAS NOT AS SATISFYING AS I WOULD HAVE LIKED, BUT TYPICAL OF PEDRO. WELL SHOT, DIRECTED AND OKAY CINEMATOGRAPHY. MANY SPANISH OSCAR EQUIVALENT AWARDS
Manuel Martin Cuenta, who has long had a cool eye for a lonely guy in films including Half Of Oscar and Cannibal, returns to the theme with an archly satirical tone in his latest film. Álvaro (Javier Gutiérrez who British audiences are most likely to remember from thriller Marshlands) is short in stature and on talent. A notary in a cramped office, his days are accompanied by a constant drone of conversation from his colleague, punctuated only by the squeak of a fan. Despite being desperate to pen a novel of high literature (it's unlikely Álvaro would see himself doing anything so cheap as 'writing'), he is in the shadow of his wife, who already has a successful page-turner to her name - a fact that everyone from his writing teacher (Antonio de la Torre, enjoying himself immensely in a rare comedy role) to his co-workers is constantly reminding him of. When he is forced to take leave from his job and discovers his wife is having an affair in short measure, Álvaro sees it as the moment to make or break his career - and possibly his life- moving into an apartment block.
After being berated for not keeping things 'real' in his class, Álvaro views the move to his new flat as an opportunity and begins to treat many of the block's other occupants as characters, just waiting to be manipulated. Drawing on information from the building supervisor (Adelfa Calvo, stealing every scene she is in), coaxed out of her via increasing amounts of attention, he also insinuates himself into the life of his elderly, borderline fascist neighbour, who has some not-so carefully guarded secrets, and starts recording arguments between his Mexican near neighbours Enrique (Tenoch Huerta) and Irene (Adriana Paz), whose kitchen conversations play out within earshot of his bathroom. - DirectorRobert GuédiguianStarsAriane AscarideJean-Pierre DarroussinGérard MeylanThree grown children gathered at the picturesque villa of their dying father reflect on where they are, who they have become, and what they have inherited.THIS DELIGHTFUL FILM FROM THE MARSEILLE REGION IS LIKE A FAMILY REUNION, AS THE DIRECTOR AND HIS PERFORMERS REUNITE. I HAVE SEEN ALL OF THEIR FILMS GOING BACK TO THE EARLY 90'S. FILLED WITH FAMILY DYNAMICS ROMANCE, AND CAPTURING ALL THE GOOD THAT LOVE OF FAMILY CAN BRING. THE NON RELATED FISHERMAN CONFESSES HIS LOVE FOR THE AGEING ACTRESS AND FINALLY ALLOWED TO CONSUMMATE HIS LOVE FOLLOWED BY THE GREATEST SHIT-EATING GRIN EVER FILMED. THIS DIRECTOR HAS A LONG LIST OF CINEMA SUCCESS AND SHOULD NOT BE MISSED.
But mostly the film unfolds in the present tense, with generous — sometimes too generous — time allotted to each of the siblings’ personal stocktaking. Added into the mix are new love interests, for Angèle in the form of young fisherman Benjamin (Robinson Stévenin, another Guédiguian regular), and for Bérangère in the shape of Yvan (Yann Trégouët), the son of Martin (Jacques Boudet) and Suzanne (Geneviève Mnich), the aged couple who are Maurice’s only remaining neighbors, and whose dignified but tragic fate provides the film with its most deeply affecting sequence. There is scarcely an unconvincing note struck throughout, but some of the relationships are almost too carefully mapped out, contributing to a repetitive feel, especially in the baggy middle portion of the film. We probably don’t need quite as much of the lovestruck Benjamin’s theatrically-inclined ardor for Angèle, and Joseph has the mordant wit of the depressive, but also tends to rather tediously reorient innocuous conversations toward worker’s rights and the class system, without there being a particularly sharp point about bourgeois values to be made. Guédiguian is too good at communicating his own interest in his characters to make the slightly complacent pacing that much of an issue, but individual scenes do often feel like they could be sharpened to a finer cutting edge and the film would be a more assertive experience as a result.
Perhaps none of those extraneous moments would seem like time inefficiently spent, though, if it weren’t for Guédiguian’s most puzzling authorial choice: to leave so late the introduction of the story’s most dramatic new element — the discovery of three migrant children, two boys and a girl like the siblings themselves, hiding out in the scrubby woods above the village. This worldview-challenging and priority-changing development is rich with dramatic potential, and thematically on point (they came from the sea that took Blanche away; they are the promise of renewal when so much is dying back). And so its 11th-hour appearance feels like an opportunity missed at best, and at worst like the refugee crisis is being used as narrative spice for the later-life-crises of a comparatively well-to-do white French family.
The inherently picturesque location provides some postcard-ready vistas, but mostly Pierre Milon’s camerawork is unfussy to the point of unremarkable. But then Guédiguian is more of a classical storyteller than a formal stylist and for the most part that serves the film well, investing us its affectionate, fully inhabited portrayals and its wide-view vision of life’s cyclical nature with minimal distraction. It makes “The House by the Sea,” for all its mildness, a gently defiant affirmation that the ebb will always be followed by the flow. - DirectorJan SverákStarsJan TrískaOldrich KaiserTereza RambaA boy and his family leave Prague during World War II and move to a small village called Slavonice. There, he meets distant relatives and adjusts to a new way of life.THIS DELIGHTFUL CZECH FILM WILL REMINDS ONE OF KOLYA, A WONDERFUL FILM ABOUT CHILDREN MANY YEARS AGO. IT STARTS OUT VERY SLOW, BUT STAY WITH IT AND YOU WILL EXPERIENCE INCREDIBLE JOY. THE KIDS IN THIS FILM ARE JUST GREAT. THE PRODUCTION IS FIRST CLASS AND THE PERFS ARE WONDERFULLY DIRECTED. IT IS A PERIOD PIECE FROM A VILLAGE ABOUT 1945 AS WORLD WAR 2 COMES TO AN END.
Based on pere Zdenek’s autobiographical novel, and directed, written and produced by Jan, it describes the wonder of growing up through the eyes of an alert 8-year-old boy whose city family has been forced into rural exile during World War II. Quickly adapting to country life, Eda (luminously played by bright-eyed, bushy-tailed newcomer Alois Grec) turns from precious Prague boy to larking country lad with a new set of bumpkin pals. An able touch of sardonic East European humor keeps things smart and light, even if real drama is notable by its absence. The Portobello release will be entertaining audiences in Palm Springs soon after its Dubai bow.
It's worth noting that Barefoot is a bona fide prequel to the director’s 1991 feature debut, The Elementary School, which finds Eda as a 10-year-old attending school in 1945. The Oscar-nominated earlier film also is based on a story and screenplay by the elder Zdenek, who played Eda’s father. This interwoven web of personal memories and characters creates a unique feeling of continuity in these works, for those who are familiar with them. - DirectorAtsuko HirayanagiStarsShinobu TerajimaSoseki YamatoyaMiyu YagyuA lonely woman living in Tokyo decides to take an English class, where she discovers her alter-ego, Lucy.NOT WORTH YOUR TIME OF EFFORT.....IF I MISSED SOMETHING, PLEASE LET ME KNOW
Try to picture a Japanese remake of “Hello, My Name Is Doris,” shot through with an undertow of quiet desperation that wouldn’t be out of place in a Cristian Mungiu film, and you’re halfway toward grasping the strange appeal of director Atsuko Hirayanagi’s feature debut, “Oh Lucy!” Like a chocolate trifle with an arsenic core, this quirky portrait of a lonely Tokyo woman who follows her English teacher to California offers a skewed take on American indie tropes, effectively gesturing toward broad comic appeal while offering peeks at a profound darkness just beneath. Expanded from her award-winning short of the same title, “Oh Lucy!” betrays some rough edges in the transition, but Hirayanagi’s idiosyncratic touch marks her as a talent worth tracking. - DirectorSam GarbarskiStarsMoritz BleibtreuAntje TraueTim SeyfiDavid Berman and his friends, all Holocaust survivors, have only one purpose: to go to America as soon as possible. For this they need money. Close to his aim, David is not only deprived of his savings but also overtaken by his shady past.MAGNIFICENT PRODUCTION, BUT WITH A RAMBLING CONFUSING NARRATIVE. NICE TO LOOK AT, BUT A LAME STORY. FROM BELGIUM AND GERMANY.
Tackling delicate subjects such as the Jews left behind in Germany after the concentration camps and investigations into collaboration between deportees and the profiteers of war (or post-war period) in one and the same film was a tall order in itself, but doing it through the medium of comedy, without disrespect, and even a sufficient dose of seriousness where necessary, is a commendable accomplishment by Belgian director Sam Garbarski, which German audiences recognised at the gala screening of Bye bye Germany [+] at the Berlin Film Festival.
This German-Belgian-Luxembourgish co-production forays into an area that is both well-known and hazardous: that of the colourful and sugar-coated comedy of Jewish humour on the darkest period in history. Dani Levy excelled in it, others have come unstuck with it, like Oskar Roehler and Jew Suss: Rise and Fall [+], which, rightly so, was very awkwardly received at Berlin. In this context, and even using the same actor, Moritz Bleitreu (who’s clearly more comfortable in the role of David Bermann than that of Goebbels), Garbarski is in the clear - DirectorSally PotterStarsTimothy SpallKristin Scott ThomasPatricia ClarksonJanet hosts a party to celebrate her new promotion, but once the guests arrive, it becomes clear that not everything will be going down as smoothly as the red wine.I HAVE NOT ENJOYED SALLY POTTER FILMS IN THE PAST AND UNFORTUNATELY THIS IS NO EXCEPTION. i APPLAUD HER ECLECTIC AND UNPREDICTABLE FILMS, BUT THIS LIKE MOST ARE SHORT PLAYS WITH NO SUBSTANCE. THE LISTED PERFORMERS GRABBED MY ATTENTION BUT THIS PARLOR PIECE WAS A DUD. METASCORE GAVE IT A 74 WHICH MAKES ME THINK THAT CRITICS LIKE VOTERS ARE DUMBING DOWN
“Sally Potter” and “big laughs” are not traditionally concepts that go hand in hand, but there’s a steady stream of them in The Party, the British director’s one-location, state-of-the-nation comedy about acrimony flying at a middle-class London gathering.
Shot in beady black-and-white and barely over an hour long, this Berlin Film Festival premiere isn’t major Potter – you have to go back a ways for that. - DirectorMilad AlamiStarsArdalan EsmailiSoho RezanejadLars BrygmannEsmail, a young Iranian man, is desperately looking for a woman who can secure his stay in Denmark. As time is running out, he falls in love and his past catches up with him.CONFUSING AND NOT ENJOYABLE BUT INSIGHTFUL INTO IMMIGRATION AND THE MIDDLE EAST, ESPECIALLY IRAN.
The title of Milad Alami’s striking debut The Charmer might describe the film itself. And on the surface it is indeed a gentle, well-mannered and elegant affair, but its caustic undertow, which becomes increasingly apparent, ends up making the viewer angry about a world that seems hell-bent on finding divisions where there need be none. Tracing the struggles of Esmail, an Iranian immigrant in Denmark, to become a Danish citizen by using the perhaps misguided strategy of sleeping with many women, The Charmer is an elegantly reflective and uncomfortable denouncement of the life - DirectorKate NovackStarsAndré Leon TalleyBethann HardisonMarc JacobsThis intimate portrait for André Leon Tally, a fixture in the world of fashion, takes viewers on a journey from André’s roots growing up to becoming one of the most influential tastemakers and fashion curators of our times.THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST INTERESTING DOCUS I HAVE EVER SEEN. THE WORLD OF FASHION AND PHOTOGRAPHY, I HATED TO BLINK FEARFUL OF MISSING SOMETHING. ANDRE IS SPECIAL BUT INSIGHT INTO ALL OF HIS DESIGNER COLLEAGUES WAS FASCINATING. PUT THIS NEAR THE TOP OF YOUR TO SEE LIST AND WILL SOON BE ON AMAZON PRIME OR NETFLIX. FABULOUS FILM.
Over the years, many people have attempted to talk longtime Vogue style arbiter and all-around fashion icon André Leon Talley into making a documentary about his pioneering journey – including his friend and soon-to-exit Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Graydon Carter. But it took looking into director Kate Novack’s “beautiful eyes”, according to the towering 67-year-old himself, to sign on the dotted line. And we’re grateful he did. Novack’s solo directorial debut, The Gospel According To André, charts how an African-American man from humble beginnings in the Jim Crow South (Durham, North Carolina) survived the fashion world’s unforgiving chiffon trenches to become one of the planet’s most ubiquitous and beloved tastemakers – all the while breaking the race barrier guarding the upper echelons of mainstream fashion publications. To no one’s surprise, The Gospel features an all-star cast attempting to outdo one another in effusive proclamations about their brilliant, frequently kaftan-clad friend. Tom Ford raves about his “fabulous insanity”, will.i.am likens him to the “Kofi Annan of what you’ve got on” and the routinely unimpressed Anna Wintour describes his sartorial knowledge as “impeccable.” And yet, whether you’ve come across his byline in the pages of WWD and Vogue, enjoyed his live commentary during the annual Met Galas or seen him judge four cycles of meltdowns and miracles on America’s Next Top Model, chances are you’ve wanted to know more about the six-foot-and-a-half enigma. Because Talley has always kept his private life at a safe distance from the loquacious, uber-knowledgeable savant persona he’s cultivated. In fact, during a post-film Q&A at the Toronto International Film Festival, Talley compared the experience of repeatedly having to confront his past on camera to open-heart surgery. - DirectorJan SverákStarsJan TrískaOldrich KaiserTereza RambaA boy and his family leave Prague during World War II and move to a small village called Slavonice. There, he meets distant relatives and adjusts to a new way of life.THIS DELIGHTFUL CZECH FILM WILL REMINDS ONE OF KOLYA, A WONDERFUL FILM ABOUT CHILDREN MANY YEARS AGO. IT STARTS OUT VERY SLOW, BUT STAY WITH IT AND YOU WILL EXPERIENCE INCREDIBLE JOY. THE KIDS IN THIS FILM ARE JUST GREAT. THE PRODUCTION IS FIRST CLASS AND THE PERFS ARE WONDERFULLY DIRECTED. IT IS A PERIOD PIECE FROM A VILLAGE ABOUT 1945 AS WORLD WAR 2 COMES TO AN END.
Based on pere Zdenek’s autobiographical novel, and directed, written and produced by Jan, it describes the wonder of growing up through the eyes of an alert 8-year-old boy whose city family has been forced into rural exile during World War II. Quickly adapting to country life, Eda (luminously played by bright-eyed, bushy-tailed newcomer Alois Grec) turns from precious Prague boy to larking country lad with a new set of bumpkin pals. An able touch of sardonic East European humor keeps things smart and light, even if real drama is notable by its absence. The Portobello release will be entertaining audiences in Palm Springs soon after its Dubai bow.
It's worth noting that Barefoot is a bona fide prequel to the director’s 1991 feature debut, The Elementary School, which finds Eda as a 10-year-old attending school in 1945. The Oscar-nominated earlier film also is based on a story and screenplay by the elder Zdenek, who played Eda’s father. This interwoven web of personal memories and characters creates a unique feeling of continuity in these works, for those who are familiar with them. - DirectorAtsuko HirayanagiStarsShinobu TerajimaSoseki YamatoyaMiyu YagyuA lonely woman living in Tokyo decides to take an English class, where she discovers her alter-ego, Lucy.NOT WORTH YOUR TIME OF EFFORT.....IF I MISSED SOMETHING, PLEASE LET ME KNOW
Try to picture a Japanese remake of “Hello, My Name Is Doris,” shot through with an undertow of quiet desperation that wouldn’t be out of place in a Cristian Mungiu film, and you’re halfway toward grasping the strange appeal of director Atsuko Hirayanagi’s feature debut, “Oh Lucy!” Like a chocolate trifle with an arsenic core, this quirky portrait of a lonely Tokyo woman who follows her English teacher to California offers a skewed take on American indie tropes, effectively gesturing toward broad comic appeal while offering peeks at a profound darkness just beneath. Expanded from her award-winning short of the same title, “Oh Lucy!” betrays some rough edges in the transition, but Hirayanagi’s idiosyncratic touch marks her as a talent worth tracking. - DirectorSam GarbarskiStarsMoritz BleibtreuAntje TraueTim SeyfiDavid Berman and his friends, all Holocaust survivors, have only one purpose: to go to America as soon as possible. For this they need money. Close to his aim, David is not only deprived of his savings but also overtaken by his shady past.MAGNIFICENT PRODUCTION, BUT WITH A RAMBLING CONFUSING NARRATIVE. NICE TO LOOK AT, BUT A LAME STORY. FROM BELGIUM AND GERMANY.
Tackling delicate subjects such as the Jews left behind in Germany after the concentration camps and investigations into collaboration between deportees and the profiteers of war (or post-war period) in one and the same film was a tall order in itself, but doing it through the medium of comedy, without disrespect, and even a sufficient dose of seriousness where necessary, is a commendable accomplishment by Belgian director Sam Garbarski, which German audiences recognised at the gala screening of Bye bye Germany [+] at the Berlin Film Festival.
This German-Belgian-Luxembourgish co-production forays into an area that is both well-known and hazardous: that of the colourful and sugar-coated comedy of Jewish humour on the darkest period in history. Dani Levy excelled in it, others have come unstuck with it, like Oskar Roehler and Jew Suss: Rise and Fall [+], which, rightly so, was very awkwardly received at Berlin. In this context, and even using the same actor, Moritz Bleitreu (who’s clearly more comfortable in the role of David Bermann than that of Goebbels), Garbarski is in the clear - DirectorSally PotterStarsTimothy SpallKristin Scott ThomasPatricia ClarksonJanet hosts a party to celebrate her new promotion, but once the guests arrive, it becomes clear that not everything will be going down as smoothly as the red wine.I HAVE NOT ENJOYED SALLY POTTER FILMS IN THE PAST AND UNFORTUNATELY THIS IS NO EXCEPTION. i APPLAUD HER ECLECTIC AND UNPREDICTABLE FILMS, BUT THIS LIKE MOST ARE SHORT PLAYS WITH NO SUBSTANCE. THE LISTED PERFORMERS GRABBED MY ATTENTION BUT THIS PARLOR PIECE WAS A DUD. METASCORE GAVE IT A 74 WHICH MAKES ME THINK THAT CRITICS LIKE VOTERS ARE DUMBING DOWN
“Sally Potter” and “big laughs” are not traditionally concepts that go hand in hand, but there’s a steady stream of them in The Party, the British director’s one-location, state-of-the-nation comedy about acrimony flying at a middle-class London gathering.
Shot in beady black-and-white and barely over an hour long, this Berlin Film Festival premiere isn’t major Potter – you have to go back a ways for that. - DirectorMilad AlamiStarsArdalan EsmailiSoho RezanejadLars BrygmannEsmail, a young Iranian man, is desperately looking for a woman who can secure his stay in Denmark. As time is running out, he falls in love and his past catches up with him.CONFUSING AND NOT ENJOYABLE BUT INSIGHTFUL INTO IMMIGRATION AND THE MIDDLE EAST, ESPECIALLY IRAN.
The title of Milad Alami’s striking debut The Charmer might describe the film itself. And on the surface it is indeed a gentle, well-mannered and elegant affair, but its caustic undertow, which becomes increasingly apparent, ends up making the viewer angry about a world that seems hell-bent on finding divisions where there need be none. Tracing the struggles of Esmail, an Iranian immigrant in Denmark, to become a Danish citizen by using the perhaps misguided strategy of sleeping with many women, The Charmer is an elegantly reflective and uncomfortable denouncement of the life - DirectorKate NovackStarsAndré Leon TalleyBethann HardisonMarc JacobsThis intimate portrait for André Leon Tally, a fixture in the world of fashion, takes viewers on a journey from André’s roots growing up to becoming one of the most influential tastemakers and fashion curators of our times.THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST INTERESTING DOCUS I HAVE EVER SEEN. THE WORLD OF FASHION AND PHOTOGRAPHY, I HATED TO BLINK FEARFUL OF MISSING SOMETHING. ANDRE IS SPECIAL BUT INSIGHT INTO ALL OF HIS DESIGNER COLLEAGUES WAS FASCINATING. PUT THIS NEAR THE TOP OF YOUR TO SEE LIST AND WILL SOON BE ON AMAZON PRIME OR NETFLIX. FABULOUS FILM.
Over the years, many people have attempted to talk longtime Vogue style arbiter and all-around fashion icon André Leon Talley into making a documentary about his pioneering journey – including his friend and soon-to-exit Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Graydon Carter. But it took looking into director Kate Novack’s “beautiful eyes”, according to the towering 67-year-old himself, to sign on the dotted line. And we’re grateful he did. Novack’s solo directorial debut, The Gospel According To André, charts how an African-American man from humble beginnings in the Jim Crow South (Durham, North Carolina) survived the fashion world’s unforgiving chiffon trenches to become one of the planet’s most ubiquitous and beloved tastemakers – all the while breaking the race barrier guarding the upper echelons of mainstream fashion publications. To no one’s surprise, The Gospel features an all-star cast attempting to outdo one another in effusive proclamations about their brilliant, frequently kaftan-clad friend. Tom Ford raves about his “fabulous insanity”, will.i.am likens him to the “Kofi Annan of what you’ve got on” and the routinely unimpressed Anna Wintour describes his sartorial knowledge as “impeccable.” And yet, whether you’ve come across his byline in the pages of WWD and Vogue, enjoyed his live commentary during the annual Met Galas or seen him judge four cycles of meltdowns and miracles on America’s Next Top Model, chances are you’ve wanted to know more about the six-foot-and-a-half enigma. Because Talley has always kept his private life at a safe distance from the loquacious, uber-knowledgeable savant persona he’s cultivated. In fact, during a post-film Q&A at the Toronto International Film Festival, Talley compared the experience of repeatedly having to confront his past on camera to open-heart surgery. - DirectorVahid JalilvandStarsNavid MohammadzadehAmir AghaeeHediyeh TehraniWhen Dr. Kaveh Nariman, a forensic pathologist, comes to work he encounters a corpse that looks familiar.MORE PROOF THAT IRAN CINEMA IS A TRUE CAPITAL OF EXCELLENCE. I PUT THEM UP THERE WITH RUSSIAN CINEMA. THIS FILM IS A FIRST CLASS DRAMA, WITH VERY HIGH TECHNICAL CREDITS, ESPECTIALLY THE PERFS, DIRECTION AND TOGRAPHY.
The forensic pathologist Dr Nariman has a car accident with a motorcyclist and injures his 8-year-old son. He offers to take the child to a clinic nearby, but the father refuses his help and money. The next morning, in the hospital where he works, Dr Nariman finds out that the little boy has been brought for an autopsy after a suspicious death. Dr Nariman is facing a dilemma: is he responsible for the child's death due to the car accident or the child died of food poisoning according to other doctors' diagnosis? - DirectorVivian QuStarsVicky ChenMeijun ZhouKe ShiIn a small seaside town, two schoolgirls are sexually assaulted by a middle-aged man in a motel. Mia, a teenager who was working on reception that night, is the only witness. For fear of losing her job, she chooses to keep silence.WELL MADE, BUT LAME NARRATIVE MADE THIS FOR ME A NEGATIVE FILM EXPERIENCE, BUT CONTERMPORARY ISSUE WERE POSITIVE
- DirectorHanna Antonina Wojcik SlakStarsLeon LucevMarina RedzepovicZala Djuric2009, Slovenia, European Union. For 30 years, Alija, the miner, has been one of the many Bosnian immigrant workers. Due to the crisis, miners are losing jobs. Alija is sent to check an abandoned mine. His task is to quickly make sure the mine is empty before management sells the company. But in the mine, Alija finds hidden proof of executions after WWII. He is told to stop digging and report the mine empty. He decides to continue, although he is risking his job. Alija discovers thousands of executed people. He informs the police. He found women among the dead. Some of them were civilians, missing persons, just like his sister that was lost in the 1995 genocide in Bosnia. Alija is convinced the victims need to be brought out, identified and buried. But there is no interest in doing that. The mine is proclaimed a WWII military grave and walled in. The dead will stay without a burial. Alija loses his job and struggles to preserve his dignity. He is sure he was doing the right thing, in spite of the unemployment his family is now faced with. Based on a true story.SOLD OUT
- DirectorJan ZabeilStarsAlexander FehlingBérénice BejoArian MontgomeryAaron wants to become a family with his girlfriend and her 8-year-old son, but high up in the Italian Dolomites, his attempts to win the boy's acceptance turn into a dangerous power game.DNF....BORING SO LEFT....ONLY WORTHWHILE ATTENDANCE WAS BERENICE BEJO.
- DirectorLisa Immordino VreelandStarsRupert EverettDavid BaileyManolo BlahnikRespected photographer, artist and set designer, Cecil Beaton. was best known for his Academy Award-winning work, designing for such award-winning films such as Gigi (1958) and My Fair Lady (1964). The film features archive footage and interviews with various models, artists and filmmakers who worked closely with Beaton during his illustrious career. Beaton was not only a dazzling chronicler of his time, but a supreme arbiter of its tastes. From the Bright Young Things, to the front lines of World War II, and from the international belle monde and the pages of Vogue to a role as the Queen's official photographer, Beaton embodied the cultural and political schisms of the twentieth century. In this warm - though critical - portrait, which blends archival footage and photographs with voice over from Beaton's famed diaries to capture his legacy as a complex and unique creative force. Dynamic and lyrical, Love, Cecil (2017) is an examination of Beaton's singular sense of the visual, which dictated a style and set standards of creativity that continue to resonate and inspire today.THE PHOTOGRAPHY ALONE MADE THIS FOR ME AN AMAZING FILM EXPERIENCE
Cecil Beaton, the Oscar-winning set and costume designer of 'My Fair Lady' and 'Gigi,' emerges as a colorful and sometimes controversial personality in this comprehensive documentary.
Most younger audience members probably would draw a blank at the name Cecil Beaton, but he was a major figure in the arts for almost 60 years. Love, Cecil, one of the most engaging documentaries shown at this year’s Telluride Film Festival, should help to restore a bit of his reputation. Director Lisa Immordino Vreeland made earlier docs about fashion maven Diana Vreeland (her husband’s grandmother) and art collector Peggy Guggenheim, so she’s revisiting comfortable terrain here and trains an affectionate but unsentimental eye on Beaton. He is probably best known for designing Oscar-winning films Gigi and My Fair Lady, and the film opens with the famous Ascot sequence from My Fair Lady — a panorama of stunning black-and-white costumes in Edwardian England, certainly one of the most striking musical sequences ever filmed.
The doc quickly reminds us that Beaton’s talents went beyond his memorable costumes for period films. In a way he was frustrated by his own wide-ranging interests, and he wondered if he might have been more successful if he had concentrated on just one field. But Beaton was too restless for that, and he succeeded as a photographer, a theater and film designer and a gifted writer in a series of published diaries. The diaries form an important part of this film; they are read by Rupert Everett, who perfectly captures the imperious and witty Beaton spirit.