There couldn’t have been a film less suited to this writer’s tastes than The Souvenir, Joanna Hogg’s semi-autobiographical 2019 drama about an aspiring filmmaker’s ill-fated romance with a drug addict. It was widely heralded as one of the best films of its year, although it proved hard to engage with due to its exploration of…
Category: Film events and festivals
65th BFI London Film Festival: “Ride the Wave” Review
Premiering at the London Film Festival this year, Martyn Robertson’s Ride the Wave follows the life of a 14-year-old surfer, Ben Larg. Hailing from the Island of Tiree in Scotland, at such a young age Ben has already grown a strong love for water sports and a passion to make it in life as a…
65th BFI London Film Festival: “Titane” Review
So much of the discussion around Titane has centered on a handful of extreme moments, that it’s easy to have a false impression about Julia Ducournau’s much heralded sophomore feature from the outside. The film is being talked about in many quarters as a mere extension of the Cronenbergian body horror of her debut, pushing…
65th BFI London Film Festival: “Leave No Traces” Review
When WWII ended, Poland was thrown into another brutal fight, this time not against Nazis, but against communism, which took over the country from 1947 until 1989. While the 1950s, 60s, and 70s were unsettling, it was the 1980s that many consider to be the most significant time in the lives of Poles. Martial Law…
“Delphine’s Prayers” Review
“The old man I slept with for 15,000 francs…it gives me goosebumps” 30-year-old Delphine confesses in one scene. She is telling the story of how she sold her body as a teenager to pay for hospital treatment for her niece who was sick with malaria. Despite Delphine’s efforts, her young niece passed away before Delphine…
“Ali & Ava” Review (TIFF 2021)
The term “social realism” usually seems like a euphemism for gritty miserabilism in cinema, any feel good films about working class lives usually introducing an aspect of fantasy to proceedings to make them palatable. This might be the reason why any romantic dramas set in Britain revolve around the comfortable middle classes, whose lives are…
78th Venice International Film Festival: “Erasing Frank” Review
Punk has always been the music of rebellion. It might sound like an obvious statement, but this particular genre – from the very beginning of the musical trend within the punk subculture – became the music of the youth. Those who lived in the 1970s and 1980s under the communist regime managed to raise their…
78th Venice International Film Festival: “Dusk Stone” Review
We watch a young boy wander along a windy shoreline in the middle of the night. With him, he’s got his dog, a backpack, and a torch which he shines out onto the sea. He’s looking for the mythical creature that supposedly lurks in these waters. This is the last time we (or anyone else)…
“Ahed’s Knee” Review (TIFF 2021)
One of the worst habits many film critics partake in at film festivals is firing off a tweet declaring that they need to let a film “marinate” after initially seeing it, so desperate to voice an immediate reaction even if they haven’t found the words to adequately describe their feelings. And yet, while watching Nadav…
In Conversation with Chen Yu-hsun, Director of “My Missing Valentine”
“I have romantic ideas, but [when I make films] I am not really a romantic person,” Chen Yu-hsun admits with a chuckle. The Taiwanese filmmaker came to fame in 1994 with his debut feature, Tropical Fish, a razor-sharp comedy-drama, for which he was awarded the Golden Horse Award for best original screenplay as well as…
“I’m Your Man” Review
Stories about artificial intelligence in cinema are often told from a distinctly male point of view. From recent indie hits like Spike Jonze’s Her and Alex Garland’s Ex_Machina, to a history of more fantastical narratives like John Hughes’ Weird Science, films about AI always seem to posit a relationship between user and machine – the…
74th Cannes Film Festival: “Olga” Review
To this day, Ukraine pays for the Euromaidan protest and the Revolution of Dignity that took place in November of 2013 and February of 2014, respectively. Both ended with blood, lowering the standard of living of Ukrainian citizens and the loss of a part of the country’s territory. The first revolt began when President Viktor…
74th Cannes Film Festival: “La Traviata, My Brothers and I” Review
14-year-old Nour (Maël Rouin-Berrandou) trudges across his council estate, flip-flops smacking against the concrete as he struggles with a hefty laundry bag and a five-litre bottle of water. It’s the height of summer, and while other kids are out playing or attending summer camp, Nour spends his days either completing community service work or looking…
74th Cannes Film Festival: “I Comete – A Corsican Summer” Review
The feature debut of director and writer Pascal Tagnati, I Comete is a lulling but earnest exploration of the small town of Tolla situated in the very heart of the island. Examining romance, friendships, family conflicts, and everyday snippets of life – Tagnati samples cinéma vérité aesthetics and techniques to create a fictional, layered, and…
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