Bela Tarr 1994 (Seen September 2014) It’s a sunny warm Saturday at the end of September, a day best spent outdoors enjoying what may be the last of our Indian summer. Not really the day to spend watching a 7hr 15min black and white Hungarian film, yet that’s what I’m heading for, on the bus … Continue reading “Classic of the week – Satantango”
Luis Bunuel (1963) Bunuel made this film in 1963, when Spain was still in the tight double-handed grip of Franco and a very right wing Catholic Church. It was almost immediately banned. Shocking enough to watch a nun taking off her stockings, but things get rapidly worse, culminating in a grotesque parody of Leonardo’s Last … Continue reading “Classic of the week -Viridiana”
David Lean (1945) It all looks like another country now, the odd, narrow-vowelled speech, the preposterous hats, but this story of two people who fall marvellously and disastrously in love still has tremendous emotional power. Scripted with panache by Noel Coward, and with much of it told in agonised voice-over by Laura (Celia Johnson) the … Continue reading “Classic of the week – Brief Encounter”
Luca Guadagnino Like his previous film I Am Love, Guadagnino’s latest runs you through with sensual pleasure. However grey and soggy the weather outside, whatever emotional torpor sits on your soul, however much your ageing bones creak and complain and your old eyes water in the wind, you step out from the cinema with a … Continue reading “A Bigger Splash”
Directed by Juho Kuosmanen This most enjoyable film is based on the story of the Finnish boxer who was European Lightweight champion in 1959, and in 1962 fought for the World Featherweight title. If you expect the happiest day to be that of his title fight, you will be right. Though things are not always as … Continue reading “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki”
Lists, lists… so invidious when it comes down to it, but there were three films on general release in the UK in 2016 that really stood out for me. Hard to believe it’s only a year ago since SPOTLIGHT (Tom McCarthy), which was to go on to win Best picture and Best Screenplay Oscars. It’s … Continue reading “Top films of 2016”
Directed by Simone Massi Simone Massi, distinguished artist and illustrator, maker of many award-winning animated shorts, designer of Venice Biennale Film posters for over 5 years, was born in Le Marche, a province of east-central Italy. There the local dialect word invelle signifies nowhere, a non-place that has no standing in the world or even … Continue reading “Invelle (Nowhere)”
Directed by Lila Avilés For various reasons I haven’t posted many reviews over several months. But it doesn’t mean I haven’t seen lots of very good films, many at Newcastle’s Tyneside Cinema, for now at least safe from the threat of closure. Here’s a few of them. Totém was Mexico’s entry for Oscar Foreign Language … Continue reading “Totém”
Directed by Rodrigo Sorogoyen The disquieting first shots of men in semi-darkness physically subduing horses with a disturbing mix of violence and almost eroticism sets the tone for this troubling, eerie film. And we’re given no time to take breath before the intimidating bulk of Denis Ménochet looms across the screen. Who is the beast … Continue reading “The Beasts”
There could hardly be a greater contrast in venues between last year’s Sheffield section of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival and this year. I mourned the absence of the wonderful Abbeydale Cinema, steeped in cinema history and with personal memories of being blown away by my first encounters with exhilarating foreign film in the 60s. … Continue reading “Yorkshire Silent Film Festival 2022, 30 October, Sheffield”
A seat in the dark 