Reviews in a nutshell
This sombre, humane and provocative drama from Xavier Beauvois (Don’t Forget You’re Going To Die) is based on a true story from the 1990s. Eight French monks live in harmony in a Cistercian monastery in North Africa, providing medical, practical and spiritual help to the local community. But fundamentalist violence threatens not only the country …
If you can ‘stylise’ a film about cancer, director Reinout Oerlemans’ Love Life would be it. Interestingly, this Dutch film was originally called Stricken (2009), which doesn’t particularly seem to fit the sexy, hedonistic stance that the film portrays, and certainly wouldn’t have the majority of punters rushing to the cinema to see it. It’s …
Don’t be fooled by the action sequences they squeeze out of the film for the trailer to try marketing this as an action-based crime thriller: it’s no Bourne. It is a part-foreign-language drama set in foreign lands – making it perfect London Film Festival fodder – that cleverly manages to straddle both art-house and mainstream …
Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy finally comes to a cinematic end, and the only thing worth knowing is whether Daniel Alfredson’s finale, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest, does justice to the spellbinding novel in tying up the loose ends. It does, to a certain extent, providing a relatively engaging and much-needed justice server at …
Continue reading “The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest – 3*”
Good guy or bad guy, does it really matter? The real-life person in question needs to have a winning charisma that translates well onto screen, and makes for a powerful story to watch, however long the film lasts. Carlos runs at 334 minutes, but it’s advisable to see it in its full-length glory to get …
‘True India lies in its village’ was Gandhi’s infamous and wise quote. The heart of any country lies in its roots – both in the literal and actual sense, and not in the urban metropolis that springs up around them. This lively satire set in the small fictional village of Peepli is a credit to …
Marseilles is a brutal place, it seems, especially if you are/were Mafioso. Basically, you have zero chance of ever going straight and living a quiet life. This is the premise behind director Richard Berry’s mobster revenge spree, 22 Bullets, starring internationally respected Gallic star Jean Reno as former Marseilles Mafioso Charley Mattei who discovers that …
Is it real or is it fake is the intriguing central theme that runs through elegant art-house film Certified Copy (hence the title), starring the ever-talented and beautiful Juliette Binoche. The power of Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami’s latest, more commercial offering than late is in the skilled direction that requires a certain patience to allow …
