FIlm Review
Blu-Ray Review: La Chinoise
After making some of the most iconic films of the French new wave, including Breathless, Pierrot le Fou, Le Mépris and Bande à Part, Jean-Luc Godard decided to move away from traditional film-making. At the end of the 1960s, for just over a decade, he made staunchly political films which reflected his Maoist sensibilities and …
EEFF Review: Another News Story
Whilst the profession of journalism has never exactly had a good reputation, its kudos is probably at a record low at the moment. UK journalists are often referred to as ‘parasites’. However, foreign reporters largely escape this criticism. The refugee crisis, which is still ongoing but you’d hardly know it as it no longer seems …
EEFF Review: The Outsider
Tom Meadmore made small waves with his debut film, the rip-roaring How to Lose Jobs & Alienate Girlfriends. Working as a television editor in his native Australia, he was determined to make his own film. So much so that he ended up making a documentary about two musicians chasing their dream. Unfortunately for Tom, they …
Film Review: The Marriage
It would be naïve to think that, despite the major steps forward taken over the past couple of decades in the UK, there’s no longer any stigma attached to homosexuality. However, we’re a long way ahead of many other countries and states. Whilst Kosovo, for example, may have legalised same-sex marriage in 2014, it doesn’t …
EEFF Review: Punk Voyage
In 2012, a door was opened into a strange universe. A domain only known to a small but vocal number of initiates. The phenomenon that is Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät, Finland’s most bad-ass punk band, were introduced to the world in the brilliant Punk Syndrome. Pertti, Kari, Toni and Sami taught us to avoid pedicures at …
Film Review: Western
Globalization has inexorably changed the face of the world. Since the signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1957, the membership of the (now) European Union has grown from six states to twenty-eight (for a year, at least). The rapid expansion east to incorporate former Soviet Bloc countries has led to a huge wave of …
Film Review: The Titan
As human beings, we seem to be doing our level best to destroy our planet as fast as we can. Any measures to slow-down climate change or which try and preserve the Earth for future generations seem to be swiftly countered by the interests of big business. Once we’ve finally raped our world of every …
Film Review: Even When I Fall
Two of the biggest social problems in the modern world are those of people trafficking and modern slavery. There are networks of criminal gangs who smuggle the innocent across borders in what is now one of the most profitable illegal industries. Whilst much of the recent focus in the news has been concentrated on the …
Film Review: A Gentle Creature
The spectre of authoritarianism, totalitarianism and dictatorships has cast a pall over much of Eastern European literature and film-making for generations. It has created some dour, depressing and downbeat work. The likes of Kafka, Gogol and Dostoevsky often focussed on corruption and the layered inanity of unmitigated bureaucracy. Sergey Loznitsa’s new film, A Gentle Creature, …
EEFF Review: Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts
The Wild West may be a long-forgotten and largely fictionalised part of America’s past, but its mythology and tropes still captivate film-makers today. However, whilst American society has left (most of) that period of its history behind, many of the characteristics of that time are still at play in less developed countries. Indonesia, for example, …