Tag: BFI

LFF 2015: Suffragette ****

As a female and a mother, the most sobering part of this film is at the very end. A list of nations rolls with the dates women got the vote. Some dates will profoundly shock. Others will not. Some women are still waiting. It’s the grand finale needed to drive the message home in a …

LFF 2014: ’71 ****

This is Northern Ireland Troubles behind ‘enemy lines’ (from a British military perspective), a powerful cat-and-mouse game that makes ’71 an exhilarating watch from the start. There needed to be a fresh angle, which writer Gregory Burke evokes, making sure that there is enough Belfast streets-located violence to establish and drum home the effects of …

LFF 2013: Mystery Road *****

Beneath Clouds (2002) writer-director Ivan Sen has found a pitch-perfect niche in the crime-thriller genre with his new film Mystery Road, set in the Australian outback. This marvellously atmospheric and sumptuous-looking film has all the mellow attitude of a western, pausing to take in panoramic, burnt-orange sunrises and sunsets, while punctuated by bursts of action …

LFF 2013: Parkland ***

Writer-director Peter Landesman’s Parkland gives another relatively new angle on tragic events following the death of US President John F Kennedy on 22nd November 1963 in Dallas, Texas, offering the hospital portrayal at Dallas’ Parkland Hospital. It’s a solid piece of drama set to provoke the same disbelief from those who remember on the day …