The atmosphere of gangster films has always resonated with darkness, violence and drugs, and more often than not involved bank robberies. In conjunction with a number of excellent directors, it is no wonder that the history of this genre is rich with outstanding films, and Above the Law (French: Tueurs) is one of those explosive,…
Aldo Iuliano’s Penalty: Short Film Review
In the middle of nowhere, on a grass patch among scattered bushes, a group of younger men is playing a game of football. It looks innocent at first, with basically no audible dialogue. But there is a growing sense of desperation and aggression involved in the game, up until the moment when one of the…
Santiago Paladines’ The Fare: Short Film Review
Somewhere in the USA, the police comes into “a drop house” – a hideaway where illegal immigrants are being kept by traffickers before transporting them deeper into the country – and what they witness is a plastic rubbish bag, filled with human waste. In it, there is a man who is barely alive, and next…
A Taxi Driver Review
“As a journalist, you shouldn’t be in a place that’s too comfortable,” German reporter Jürgen Hinzpeter says to his colleagues as they discuss the civil unrest in Gwangju, South Korea. He craves an interesting story, a chance to uncover a hidden truth to the world so when he hears about what’s happening there, he knows he must go….
The Dark Tower Review
There must be some sort of a curse, cast upon the works of Stephen King; while the novels and the stories that the man has created have thrilled and scared the living wits out of millions of readers across the globe, the majority of attempts to transfer those scaries and monsters and universes onto the…
The 25th Raindance Film Festival Programme Announced
Raindance Film Festival, the largest independent film festival in Europe, is returning for its 25th anniversary edition this year; it is slotted from September 20th to October 1st 2017, with its venue in Central London – and just yesterday, on August 15th 2017, the festival announced its 25th line-up of over 200 feature and short films. For…
Seeing Him: Short Film Review Plus Q&A with Vanessa Bailey
The theme of attraction and fantasy relationships where a woman is older than a man is clearly deficient in the cinema, while the reverse configuration finds plenty attention without anyone complaining. Seeing Him, a short film written by Vanessa Bailey and directed by Chris Jones, has finally brought what the British cinema was slightly lacking: a…
Luc Besson’s Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets
The Fifth Element (1997) has been both loved and bashed by critics for the past 20 years; some have even ruled it the best summer blockbuster ever made. However, not many people know that Luc Besson’s creation was partially inspired by a series of French space opera comic books called Valérian and Laureline; the connection…
Dunkirk Review
The topic of the Second World War has been depicted mainly in two ways so far, which can be represented by Steven Spielberg’s exactness and the poetic parlance of Terrence Malick; other films flicker in between these two directors’ styles. Christopher Nolan, meanwhile, with his new production – Dunkirk – took a different approach to the…
Project Itoh’s Genocidal Organ
A word, a whisper in a general’s ear, and just like that a nation will descend into chaos. Neighbour against neighbour, brother against brother, indiscriminate violence to the point where even the leaders forget exactly how it all began. How can something like this happen? And can it really be the work of one man?…
Pablo Larraín’s Neruda
The 2016 feature Neruda brings together two creators of the same (first) name – the character of the legendary Nobel prize winner and celebrated poet and political activist Pablo Neruda, whose original name was Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto, serves as the center, the source material and the inspiration to Pablo Larraín, the barely 40-year-old…
Okja Review
There is no doubt that Bong Joon-ho is a visionary filmmaker. And with six features under his belt (Snowpiercer, Mother, The Host, Memory of Murder, Barking Dogs Never Bite), including his newest production, the Netflix original Okja, there is no sign of him slowing down. Okja premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival; it connects drama, family…
In Conversation with Mori Yoshitaka and Matsuyama Kenichi
This year’s Udine Far East Film Festival offered a great selection of truly excellent films, and among those, some packed an especially powerful emotional charge; in this grouping, there is no doubt that Satoshi: A Move for Tomorrow was among the very best. The film’s screening was accompanied by director Mori Yoshitaka, known best for his Space…
Destination Unknown Review
No one will ever give a truer account of the fight and life during the Second World War – or any war – like the people who survived it. Even 72 years after the WWII ended, we still get to hear reports of what happened from the handful of people who live to tell what…
VIEW OF THE ARTS 