Can you be overwhelmed by a film you don’t really like? I just walked out of this South Korean documentary. The cinema was packed, I was in the middle of a row. For twenty minutes I struggled with the urge to flee, not wanting to disturb the people around me. Leaving was such a relief. I’m sitting here outside the Kino, still shaking, wanting to cry. Continue reading
Category Archives: Reviews
Prophet’s Prey (2015)
StandardSome stories deserve to be told because they are so outrageous you wouldn’t believe they could really happen. This is one of those. When Joseph Smith, the ‘prophet’ of the Latter-day Saints, retracted his revelation requiring polygamy, ostensibly because of a new revelation from God, but coincidentally after societal and governmental censure and prosecution, groups of fundamentalists broke with the church to set up their own polygamous colonies. One, at least, of those remains today, led by the Jeffs family. Continue reading
My Skinny Sister (Min lilla syster) (2015)
StandardI wanted to really love this Swedish film. It had great bones, interesting characters, interesting topic, an unflinching gaze and a strong central performance from the 12-ish year old lead. It is the story of her character, Stella, as she watches her sister Katja, the skinny sister of the title, struggle with the rigours of competitive figure skating and, slowly we discover, an eating disorder. Continue reading
The Red Army (2014)
StandardI now know a lot more about Soviet ice hockey than I did before. This US (though billed as Russian) documentary is quite an engaging look at the USSR national ice hockey team, developed under Stalin to show to the West the superiority of the communist way of life. Continue reading
Mustang (2015)
StandardThe second film of the festival for me and it was a gem. This Turkish film began gently. Five sisters ranging in age perhaps from 11 to 16, play a game on the beach with friends, both girls and boys, on the way home from school. It is an image of exuberance and youth, so normal. But the word of a neighbour sets off a chain of events that swiftly and inexorably changes the world of the girls. Ostensibly because of convention, but really because of fear, their uncle and grandmother shut off the outside world and try to force them into the acceptable role of wife. Continue reading
Under Electric Clouds (Pod elektricheskimi oblakami) (2015)
StandardWhen you miss the start of a film, you can’t help feeling you’ve missed some important aspect of the plot that would have made it comprehensible. That’s how I felt with this Russian film. The first twenty minutes consisted mainly of a guy wandering through a blighted ice-covered landscape carrying a radio. Enigmatic, beautiful in lots of ways, tragic. Then it cut to another chapter and another and it became clear that there was nothing really finished or linear about this film. There were a brother and sister grappling with change after their father’s death, a man who kept returning to his childhood in his dreams and disaffected, drug-affected youths searching for a 12 year old taken hostage. Maybe there were more, that’s when I left. Continue reading
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