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“He is my son. This is my love.” says a mother as she carries her young son, killed by an air strike. He was taken by his brothers to the makeshift hospital that Hamza, the husband of journalist and a writer/director Waad Al-Khateab has established in Aleppo during the siege of 2016. Continue reading
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Lynn Shelton knows how to tell a good story. I loved Hump Day (2009) and Your Sister’s Sister (2011) and, like them, Sword of Trust is full of wry humour, great characters and cracking dialogue. Continue reading
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Documentaries like this one aren’t an easy ride. You are dropped into the middle of a cluster of stories with no context, narration nor exposition to help you understand where you are. You have to have the patience to sit back and let the stories unfurl and the characters to worm their way into your heart. Continue reading
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A disappointingly flat and somewhat tone-deaf treatment of an interesting topic. Continue reading
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The Killing Fields (1984) was an influential movie for me. I was 19 when it came out and it was my first experience of the atrocities of Pol Pot in Cambodia and the eradication of 2 million people. Funan covers the same story, focusing on one family who are forced to flee Phnom Penh by the Khmer Rouge (or Angkar). Continue reading
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A credible source told me that director Hong Sang-soo doesn’t mind if you nap in his films. Hotel by the River’s quiet contemplation lulled me into a few lengthy blinks so I missed a little of its wry, slow narrative. Continue reading
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I can’t get this film by Jennifer Kent (The Babadook) out of my head. I went to it with some trepidation after tales of mass walkouts at the Sydney Film Festival. Continue reading
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I booked this one without knowing much about the film, enticed primarily by the live soundtrack by Sampa the Great and the story about being a young, poor, black French woman, with all its beauty and tragedy. Continue reading
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This was not at all what I expected. My tendency is to skim over a synopsis if there are some key trigger words – in this case Tilda Swinton and Richard Ayoade. I think I was expecting something akin to the polished drawing-room drama of Sally Potter’s The Party (2017). It couldn’t have been more different. Continue reading
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I loved Maya Newell’s Gayby Baby (2015). She has a knack of removing herself from the frame and immersing us in the intimate world of family. It can seem like a commonplace tale until you slowly realise that she is personalising key social concerns, allowing us a window into the impact of prejudice, racism and institutionalised apathy. Continue reading
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