This is such an interesting film by Athina Rachel Tsangari (Chevalier), and something that I appreciated more after hearing her talk in a Q&A afterwards.
Continue readingHarvest (2024)
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Poor Things (2023)
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Such a relief! I thought this latest English language feature by Yorgos Lanthimos might have his incisive gaze diminished by Hollywood capitalism but it is on par with some of his early gems, albeit with a more inspiring, less bleak ending.
Continue readingKinds of Kindness (2024)
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Yes I could have seen this one on streaming on my TV screen but I chose to treat myself to a cinema viewing. I’m a very big Yorgos Lanthimos fan, particularly his early Greek-based works and a little less so of his more recent Hollywood outings. Kinds of Kindness is a mostly successful amalgamation of them both.
Continue readingDrift (2023)
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Anthony Chen give us a compelling portrait of loss in his first English language feature.
Continue readingGreen Sea (Πράσινη θάλασσα) (2021)
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What are the chances that two of the four films I have watched so far as part of the Sydney Film Festival have been Greek films about people with amnesia? Where Christos Nikou’s Apples (2020) used it as a metaphor, Angeliki Antoniou has a more prosaic approach.
Continue readingApples (Μήλα) (2020)
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With a beginning that reminded me of the doleful surrealism of Lanthimos’s The Lobster (2015), Christos Nikou gives us an unexpectedly gentle portrait of a man struggling with grief.
Continue readingDigger (2020)
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I can see what this austere drama from Georgis Grigorakis was trying to do and, for a first feature, it is well crafted and tonally interesting. Pitched as a David and Goliath battle between an everyman and a mining company and also, oddly as a ‘Western, revisited’, it didn’t quite achieve its aim.
Continue readingPity (2018)
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Image via miff.com.au
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
Chevalier (2015)
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At last, a five star film. I had hopes for Chevalier as it is co-written by Efthymis Filippou, the co-writer of The Lobster and Dogtooth, two brilliant films by Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos. And you know how much I loved The Lobster. Set on a luxury yacht off a nameless Greek Island, six men, with various connections with each other, dive, fish and share food, wine and stories. Slowly at first and then with greater intensity, they begin to compete for the prize of the “best man in general.” Continue reading
The Lobster (2015)
StandardI’m going to write a lot about this film because I loved it. This is the one film I most wanted to see at MIFF but it sold out within the first few days and I missed out. I had high hopes for it as I loved Dogtooth, the previous film from this director, Yorgos Lanthimos. His films are not for everyone. They can be black and bleak and devastating but they are incisive and profoundly moving satires about our self-imposed limitations and fears. Continue reading
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