LFF
LFF Review: The Unknown Saint
Nothing does dark and sardonic quite like the human imagination. We, as a species, are fatally flawed. We build societies and communities which are inherently unfair, then complain about it. We make bureaucratic processes so complex that they become virtually impossible to navigate. Almost Kafkaesque, you could say. Indeed, there’s something so delightfully fun about …
BFI London Film Festival 2019 Preview
The 63rd BFI London Film Festival takes place in cinemas across the capital between 2-13 October. It’s the UK’s premier showcase of the most exciting new cinema from around the world. This year sees a firm focus on innovative directors, with a competition boasting extraordinary visions. Featuring 229 feature films, including numerous premieres, and 116 …
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) …