Film
Sarah Kent
Director Alice Diop read an article by Pierre Bergounioux in which he described how he began writing to draw attention to his overlooked neck of the woods – Correze, in central France. It was a lightbulb moment for her: “My approach as a film-maker suddenly became clear to me, I realised I’d been making films about the suburbs in an obsessive way for the past 15 years… to conserve the existence of ordinary lives, which would have disappeared without trace if I hadn’t filmed them.”We is a celebration of some of those ordinary lives – people who live alongside the RER railway line to and from Read more ...
Saskia Baron
There’s a sharp observation, delivered in Alan Bennett’s soft tones, that sums up the reputation of the painter Eric Ravilious: “Because his paintings are so accessible, I don’t think he’s thought to be a great artist. It’s because of his charm. He’s so easy to like and things have to be hard, if they’re not hard, then they’re not great." Veteran arts documentary director Margy Kinmonth makes an excellent argument for elevating the status of watercolourist and etcher Eric Ravilious in this lovingly crafted biographical film. Her account begins with Ravilious’ dramatic end; an official war Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Strictly Ballroom aside, I’ve never been entirely persuaded by Baz Luhrmann. Once you rip open the plush packaging of his films, you often just find satin and tissue paper inside. Elvis isn’t his worst movie (they can’t take that accolade away from Moulin Rouge!) but it isn’t the monumental ode to a great American legend that one hoped it might have been.Hats off to Luhrmann’s leading man Austin Butler, at least, who makes a heroic stab at stepping into Elvis’s blue suede shoes and Las Vegas jumpsuits. He doesn’t really resemble the King, but with help from lighting, makeup and some jittery, Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
High culture...low life. Emmanuel Courcol’s film The Big Hit (Un Triomphe in France) is a 105-minute experiment in what might possibly go right – and at the same time what could at any moment go spectacularly wrong – when a group of prison inmates are let out of jail to perform Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.It is well-scripted (by director Courcol and two associates), well-plotted, and has strong central performances. When the prisoners first meet the main protagonist, Étienne Carboni (played by Kad Merad), they spot immediately, from the very first sight of his shoes, that although Read more ...
Nick Hasted
His car skids through an LA stoplight, then Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) enters his insurance office in the small hours, taking a lift as if to the scaffold, coat hanging like a cloak, a dark stain on his shoulder. From his upstairs office, the desks below look like a hellish pit, the lamps insectile. Even with the light on, his face stays eaten by shadows at first. Fumbling for a cigarette, he turns on a voice recorder to confess. “Yes, I killed him. For money. And for a woman. I didn’t get the money. And I didn’t get the woman. Pretty, ain’t it?”Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck, Read more ...
mark.kidel
The 400 Blows (1959) and Jules et Jim (1962) established François Truffaut as an outstanding and original director. His next film, The Soft Skin (La peau douce) from 1964, was not in the same league.Although it displays many of his story-telling skills, not least a gift for suspense, the film feels dated, the characters are not quite as interesting as in his earlier hits, and the plot – a middle-aged married man has an affair with an air hostess, and his worn-out marriage falls apart – is a little formulaic. It is by no means a bad film, but it is certainly not among Truffaut’s best.The two Read more ...
Graham Fuller
The film title Pleasure begs the question, whose pleasure? Since first-time feature director Ninja Thyberg’s cautionary drama depicts the journey of a newcomer intent on becoming the Los Angeles adult film business's top female performer, the pleasure self-evidently isn’t hers, but that taken by the hordes of men who’ll watch her being systematically degraded on Pornhub and its ilk. Doubtless some women porn stars enjoy their work. Women are increasingly vocal about enjoying porn, and there are, of course, adult films that prioritise female sensuality and satiety. But Pleasure’s milieu Read more ...
Saskia Baron
I really wanted to like Good Luck to You, Leo Grande. It’s got a funny trailer and Emma Thompson has been passionately publicising her film. And while our screens are currently full of stories about twentysomething girls and their chaotic love lives, watching a 62-year old woman intent on enjoying sex with a younger man on her own terms seemed promising. Unfortunately, the film is overly talky and visually dull. Filmed under the restrictions of Covid, Leo Grande takes place almost entirely in a single hotel room, with one scene in the downstairs bar. It could have been a Read more ...
Saskia Baron
The animation may be stunning, but in every other department, Lightyear is a disappointment. It’s a crying shame for anyone who loved the original Toy Story and its (mainly) excellent sequels. If you were expecting a buzz from Pixar’s origin story, brace yourself instead for a damp squib. We’re told in a caption that what we're about to see is the sci-fi movie that Andy watched back in 1995, the thrilling adventure that inspired him to jettison his beloved cowboy figure Woody in favour of macho astronaut Buzz Lightyear. But something went wrong in Angus MacLane’s Read more ...
Saskia Baron
French filmmakers do family dramas so well, and none better than François Ozon when he is on form, as he is on Everything Went Fine.André (veteran charmer André Dussolier) is a wealthy industrialist and art dealer who, after suffering a debilitating stroke at the age of 85, has no wish to live a diminished life. His two daughters try to persuade him that the future still holds many pleasures, but over several months Emmanuèle (Sophie Marceau) agrees to make the covert arrangements for her father to travel to Switzerland. Assisted suicide is outlawed in France.The legendary Fassbinder Read more ...
mark.kidel
The Last Metro (Le dernier métro), from 1980, is without doubt one of François Truffaut’s best films: a story beautifully told, strong on character, sometimes funny and always profoundly moving. Most of the credit has gone to Truffaut and co-stars Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu, but there is a key member of the team whose name is barely known outside the world of French cinema history.There are echoes here of the director's 1973 La nuit américaine (aka Day for Night), a film also set behind the scenes of show business, whose strength derives to a large extent from the many Read more ...
Graham Fuller
Like her first two features, Lucile Hadžihalilović’s Earwig is an oneiric coming-of-age drama that uses body horror imagery as a metaphor for the daunting unknowns – sexual and emotional – to be encountered in adulthood.Eschewing narrative logic, which some viewers will find frustrating, it depicts the ordeal of a little girl who has failed to develop secondary teeth. The unexplained involvement of her protector with a waitress, which is limned with erotic violence, intersects with the girl’s story. It dilutes the maturation theme, but amps up the movie’s power by adding layers of Read more ...