BFI
LFF Review: Knife +Heart
In 1987, at the tender age of fourteen, Venessa Paradis announced herself to the world with the single Joe le taxi. Two years later she was making a splash in her first film Noce Blanche. Both her music and film career has bubbled along ever since, but it’s probably her high profile and tumultuous marriage …
LFF Review: The Guilty
Nowadays, most thrillers you see on the big screen have eye-boggling budgets, multiple action set-pieces and often big dollops of CGI. However, tension isn’t something that can be merely bought. It relies on a cleverly-written script, tight direction and actors who have the ability to keep you in the moment. Films like 12 Angry Men, …
LFF Review: School’s Out
The continuing appeal and obsession with Twin Peaks, now for another generation, demonstrates how much he love a good mystery. Indeed, David Lynch is the grand master of the abstruse and Mulholland Drive remains one of cinema’s most beguiling and confusing puzzles. In the last few years, the likes of The Duke of Burgundy, Kill …
LFF Review: Burning
Whilst slick action films, sickly romantic comedies and stylish horrors may dominate at the box office, Lee Chang-dong is arguably the greatest living Korean director. Over a career which has so far spanned three decades, he has made some of the most thoughtful, beautiful and challenging films coming out of the East. The likes of …
LFF Review: Dead Pigs
Whilst China has been the biggest economic success story of the 21st century, the transition from a Communist society to one competing for global dominance with America has not always been smooth going. It has seen the rise of a prosperous middle-class but a far greater number have been left behind; often exploited or trampled …
LFF Review: The Plan
Given that the United Kingdom spearheaded the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, and has a long and rich history of leading the world when it comes to innovation and production, it’s strange to think that the manufacturing industry has been in a sharp decline for decades now. Much of the lasting damage was done …
LFF Review: Bad Reputation
Whilst it’s only now that women are starting to become widely respected as ‘rock’ musicians, imagine how bad it was forty years ago? Even today, is not out of the ordinary for female band members to receive derogatory comments about playing their instrument or asked questions which men would never be expected to answer. So, …
LFF Review: All the Gods in the Sky
One of the most fascinating cinematic movements over the course of the last two decades has been the emergence of the New French Extremity. Indeed, it’s one of the most inventive and creative areas of modern genre cinema. It’s an area where Gaspar Noé seems completely at home, but it’s films like Martyrs and Frontière(s) …
LFF Review: The Day I Lost My Shadow
There have been many films covering the crisis, conflict and atrocities which have taken place in Syria following the unrest of 2011. Whilst it’s largely accepted that over half-a-million people have been killed since hostilities broke-out, it’s extremely difficult to quantify numbers and differentiate between civilian casualties and armed combatants. However, it’s clear that the …
LFF Review: The Spy Gone North
Despite relations warming somewhat over the past couple of years, North and South Korea has been in a state of war since 1953. In reality, this has taken many forms, but the cult of propaganda and the art of espionage have played a major role in their hostilities. Whilst the Cold War may have ended …