An interesting journey through sites of industry – metal crushers, freight ships, oil wells – with people who work there speaking of their relationships with sound and silence. Marred by the noise coming from the venue foyer, it was nevertheless an interesting experience but not as visually pleasing as the above image.
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I wasn’t expecting to be charmed by Christian Petzold’s inventive rethinking of a well-worn World War II movie trope. To all intents and purposes, it is a period drama akin to Casablanca, complete with third-person narration, a mysterious dame and uniformed guards with dogs. However, the backdrop is inexplicably and unapologetically modern day France. Continue reading
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Usually, you going to a heist movie expecting tension, action and a black-and-white resolution – capture or escape. Don’t expect this from Alonso Ruizpalacios’s Museum, loosely based on the real life theft of Mayan antiquities from the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City in the 1980s. Continue reading
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If you are a fan of the films of Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer), you’ll know what to expect from this structured and sobering feature from Babis Makridis. Co-written by Lanthimos collaborator Efthymis Filippou, it has a similar sensibility and intensity. Continue reading
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I’m a bit partial to a zombie movie and this Irish take by David Freyne weaves an exploration of power and marginalisation with some satisfying action and horror. Continue reading
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The chance to see Marlena Dietrich, in a tuxedo, kiss a woman was enough to get me to Morocco. I love punctuating my MIFF experience with the nostalgia of a classic and any of the 30s black-and-white dramas and melodramas are like entering a different universe. Continue reading
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My film before this one, Ukrainian Donbass, was an unrelenting, grubby onslaught of caricature, corruption and violence. Following it with 100 minutes with Ryuichi Sakamoto was like a balm for the heart and soul. Continue reading
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Not as blackly comedic as I was expecting, more bleakly tragic, Malgorzata Szumowska’s Mug doesn’t hide its overt criticism of the hypocrisy of religious complacency, as shown by the narrowmindedness of the people of a rural Polish town. Continue reading
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Dear Paul Schrader,
I have just finished watching your latest film, First Reformed, which starts Ethan Hawke as the Reverend Ernst Toller, a man facing a personal crisis. I am wondering, did you intend this to be an ode to the ills and delights of patriarchy or did you think you were telling a universal story? Continue reading
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Pawel Pawlikowski has crafted a bleak and beautiful tribute to the joys and violence of love and ideology. Continue reading
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