This US documentary by the Maysles was made in 1975 and it shows that, if you have remarkable people, you only need to point a camera at them for long enough to get a story. We are flies on the wall of the crumbling East Hampton mansion, Grey Gardens, owned by Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, ‘Little Edie’. Edith is Jackie Kennedy’s aunt and we can see that she has come from old money and the American aristocracy. That is all in the past though, as the mansion is a squalid place, full of cats and raccoons and rubbish and Edith and Little Edie live an insular and co-dependent life within its walls. Continue reading
Category Archives: Reviews
Don’t Tell Me the Boy Was Mad (Une histoire de fou) (2015)
StandardA somewhat trivial title for a film grounded in long-held sorrow. The original title, Une Histoire de Fou gives perhaps a more meaningful name – A History of Madness. This is a French film but it is about Armenia and the repercussions of the massacre of more than one million Armenians by the Ottoman government during and after the first World War. You may be like me and several French characters in the movie to say, “Where’s Armenia?”. How could I not know about this part of history? Continue reading
Magic Magic (2013)
StandardThis is the Sebastian Silva film that I had originally booked and then got the recommendation to see The Maid. I really liked that one and I suspected that this wouldn’t be as good. It wasn’t, but he has won me over as a director and I’m now intrigued to see more of his films.
Alicia is a California girl joining her cousin Sarah for a break in Chile. With some Chilean and American friends they head south to a remote coastal location where they are surrounded by the mess and noise of nature. It becomes clear that Alicia is suffering from some kind of breakdown and the isolation, geographically and emotionally from those around her, means she quickly spirals into psychosis. Continue reading
Love (2015)
StandardI still have the Satie music from this film in my head. This is a French film by Argentinian director Gaspar Noé and it was only on the way home that I realised Love really reminded me of Irreversible. A quick IMDb search and it turns out that was a Noé film too. If anyone reading this has seen Irreversible, you’ll know that Noé is a director who is fearless in his approach. The mood of this film was similar and the technique of beginning at the end, but where Irreversible was a harrowing look at the things we can’t change, Love approaches a similar theme in quite a different way. Continue reading
Journey to the Shore (Kishibe no tabi) (2015)
StandardOh Lordy. I should have left half way through this Japanese film. I’d just seen a really delightful Japanese film, Wonderful World End, and this one started well. We see a women, Mizuki, drifting in and out of her day. She teaches piano, lives alone. Then a man appears in her apartment and we soon realise he is her dead husband Yusuke, who drowned himself three years before. She’s not surprised to see him and when they begin a journey together, others can see and talk to him too. I liked this quirk of the film and I wondered whether it says something about Japanese culture and how they view death. Continue reading
Wonderful World End (2015)
StandardWhat a kooky and delightful film. I knew it would be different. The synopsis said it was about a 17-year-old Gothic-Lolita cosplaying model who twitcasts for her fans. This one is part of the Next Gen program, I’ve seen a few – Being 14, My Skinny Sister, Gayby Baby, Me Romantic Romani – not by design so much as being interested in adolescence and female identity. I have had a glimpse of life for teens in France, Sweden, Australia, Italy and now Japan. The thread that has run through just about all of them is that adolescence is hard and parents don’t listen. Continue reading
The Chosen Ones (2015)
StandardI keep thinking about this film. Like Mediterranea, it is about a current crisis and it seems impossible that this could be happening and nothing can be done about it.
Set in Tijuana in Mexico, we see Ulises, sweet, maybe 17 years old, dating Sofia, an engaging 14 year old. They sleep together, talk, ride bikes, do all the things that teenagers in love do. Then he takes her home to meet his family and it is a picture of domestic normality, his dad is celebrating a birthday, his brother arrives with his wife and baby, his mother cuts the cake. What we don’t know, is that Ulises is part of a family that entices young women with romance, separates them from their family, and then imprisons them in brothels, forcing them into slavery. Sofia is Ulises’s first. Continue reading
Day thirteen – hitting the wall
StandardOkay, I know you all think I have amazing stamina but it honestly hasn’t been hard. Every day is a new and exciting experience, every film potentially the best film I have ever seen. I love the community of fellow film-goers, I love all the walking in the cold, I love it that I know interesting places to eat and the best place to sit in every venue. Continue reading
Mediterranea (2015)
StandardAnother multinational production – even Qatar gets a look in on this one – but I think it would be classified as Italian. It’s about Africans looking for a better life in Europe, though, so you feel as if you have been immersed in a melting pot of cultures, all looking for something better. Continue reading
Louder Than Bombs (2015)
StandardThis is listed as a Norwegian film, as the director Joachim Trier is from Norway, but it’s set in the US with mainly Hollywood actors so it feels American. It has an interesting and promising premise. A widower struggles to communicate with his two sons after the death of their mother, Isabelle. She was a celebrated war photographer and it soon becomes apparent that she took her own life. Continue reading
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