Tabu and the Ghosts of Silent Cinema
I walked into the screening of Tabu expecting to see one of my favourite films of the year. If you follow any pre-release chatter on blogs or Twitter, you’ll likely [...]
Sgt. Andy (Is Going to Help Me) – An appreciation of XTC in five notes
1. It’s becoming harder and harder to take seriously announcements that bands are breaking up. The new economics of the music business call for most artists to be consistently ‘active’, [...]
Turkish cinema: another time, another world
The themes of Reha Erdem’s Kosmos will be much recognisable to devotees of the transcendentalist-spiritual sector of world cinema, yet it is perhaps more interesting for granting us another timely [...]
Children of the Revolution: The Keys to Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom
Moonrise Kingdom, Wes Anderson’s long-awaited new film, offers us an uncommonly expansive view of a New England island community, but it begins in a country house that is isolated and [...]
“If we could tell a film, then why make a film” – Jafar Panahi’s This is Not A Film
Like many an oppressive political regime before it, Iran has shown a horrifying effectiveness in marginalising its own artists. In 2010, a decade of increasing censorship and intimidation eventually came [...]
The Oscars – what happened to the pomp and the buzz?
Mirroring the wider film industry’s own identity crisis and financial restructuring, the Academy Awards currently finds itself in a curious phase of renewal. In its own eyes, and through the [...]
What the Wolf watched in 2011
Honourable Mentions: Poetry; Hugo; Mysteries of Lisbon; Weekend; Cave of Forgotten Dreams; A Separation. 10. The Salt of Life Gianni Di Gregorio wrote the much-loved Gomorrah [2008], and used his [...]
The Skin I Live In
Pedro Almodóvar’s work possesses an unmistakable stylistic signature: a colourful, knowing fusion of Hitchcock and Sirk, compassionate portraits of strong women, and lush visuals harking back to the veneer of [...]
Review: A Separation
Western filmgoers often seem quite surprised that an Iranian film industry exists at all. I remember one conversation I had when Certified Copy was about to come out, where I [...]
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