Tag: Foreign Language
-
The Death of Louis XIV Review – What it says on the tin
The Death of Louis XIV promises one thing and slowly, agonisingly delivers upon it. The opening credits play over the king of France being pushed around the palace gardens for the final time, after the title card hits we do not spend even a single second outside his quarters. The king remains in his bed…
-
From the Land of the Moon Review – No idea either
I don’t have too much to say about From the Land of the Moon aside from how boring it is. Like, it’s real dull.
-
My Life as a Courgette Review – Small and perfect
It’s a light film, gentle and composed in a way that leads it to fly through its running time. Don’t mind it though, 66 minutes is the right length for this thing, the quiet confidence it expresses, its insistence in finding the meaning in the small tender moments in these lives is magical, all that…
-
After the Storm Review – Ode to the shitty fathers
It’s a bad dad tale. I guess the real tragedy is that he’s not even close to being the worst dad we’ve seen on the screen and even then he don’t get off too easy. At the same time, speaking as someone with they own daddy issues, he gets more than he deserves.
-
The Other Side of Hope Review: Something being said
Damn, why is it that all the Nordic movies are the most determinedly stylish? If it ain’t Juho Kuosmanen buying up Europe’s entire stock of 16mm b/w film for The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki or Roy Andersson playing with the nature and texture of digital filmmaking in his Living Trilogy then…
-
Frantz: Love after the war
There’s something about wartime romance movies. Usually in this country it’s the Second World War. After some searching i found the last most recent one, the insipid 2004 joint Suite Française. A film, as they always are about the love affair between a French woman and this dashing Nazi officer. At least Ilsa, She Wolf…
-
Harmonium: A perfect lil film
Harmonium is a film of two halves. The first, a slow burn tension flick: a family’s life is disturbed by the emergence of a figure from the husband’s past. Who is this mysterious dude? Why is he now living in their house? Is he plotting something; he certainly seems shifty. Then at the moment of…
-
Clash: Political hotbox
I’m trying to calculate how much my wish for Clash to deal more directly with its politics is an extension of my own privilege. I mean, complaining that a film ain’t catering to my tastes as I sit in a nice seat in a art cinema with an almost entirely white clientele, seems almost hypocritical.…
-
The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki: Just lovely
See, just when I was getting disillusioned a good film about straight people comes along. Maybe there is some worth in them. A Finnish film about a 1960s boxer’s training in the lead up to a world championship bout stealths its way into being the best love movie in a while. Mainly because what the…
-
Raw: I just realised, it’s probably about vegetarianism too…
Holy shit. Holy shit y’all. Holy shit. Raw is Julia Ducournau’s first feature. It’s the sort of first feature people dream of making. The sort of debut that means something. It’s a French language film the screened in the UK with the standard Universal Pictures ident at the lead, that don’t just happen here. Not…
A Grand Quiet 