The Butterfly’s Tongue (La Lengua de las mariposas, Spain, 1999)

SPOILERS: DON’T READ THIS UNTIL YOU’VE SEEN THIS WONDERFUL FILM.
This is an extraordinary film; the bulk of it is the coming of age story of the asthmatic Moncho (a performance by Manuel Lozano to rival Ana Torrent in Spirit of the Beehive) and then, in the final 10 minutes, the Civil War starts. The beautifully [...]

Goodbye Bafana (Ger, Fr, Bel, S. Africa, It, UK, Lux, 2007)

Why is it that the stories about apartheid we get to see, in the UK at least, are the white man’s story? The economic racism of the film industry, of course, explains this but it does make watching films like Goodbye Bafana a slightly uncomfortable experience. The proper story is of the ANC’s struggle and [...]

Hunger (UK, 2008)

This film, about the final months of IRA-man Bobby Sands’ life, had to be harrowing otherwise it wouldn’t be doing its ‘duty’. It was. As Sands starves to death, the body horror of actor Michael Fassbender’s deterioration make difficult viewing and it’s a relief when he dies. The justification for his hunger strike (to gain [...]

Michael Clayton (US, 2007)

This was the penultimate film from Clooney and Soderbergh’s Section Eight company, their attempt to make interesting movies funded by the commercial success of the Oceans series. Good effort guys: Far From Heaven (2002), Syriana, Goodnight, and Good Luck (both 2005), A Scanner Darkly (2006) and Michael Clayton are a worthy legacy. While not exactly [...]

Be Kind Rewind (US, 2008)

Writer-director Michel Gondry will always be a ‘must-see’ for me after Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004); I love the quirky way he views the world. Be Kind Rewind had a platform release in North America and grossed around $11m. It was released wide, before this, in the UK and took over £3.5m. Given [...]

Venus (UK, 2006)

Age is often represented as a joke and laughing about a difficult situation is a good way of dealing with it. However, many old people are not in difficult situations and they are also greatly under-represented in film. Thus Venus would be welcome simply because two of its central characters are old: O’Toole is in [...]

Quantum of Solace (UK-US, 2008)

I didn’t have high hopes for this so was pleased to see this episode of Bond at least referencing the realpolitik. While it’s usual for action cinema to have a patina of contemporary reference, it seems here to be more than just topical. There’s only one American character, Felix, who’s vaguely sympathetic so it will [...]

Of Time and the City (UK, 2008)

There aren’t many British film makers (any?) who can create such powerful visuals as Davies so it’s a (typical) scandal that he’s made very few films. I should’ve loved this: I was born in Ellesmere Port (an overflow town from Liverpool) in the ’60s so I could ‘recognise’ many of the images. Many of the [...]

Once (2006, Ireland)

This is an unusual film built, as it is, around the musical talents of the leads (Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová) rather than a strong narrative drive. The extended musical sequences may suggest a musical, but they aren’t used to progress the narrative. By showing complete songs (which are good) the narrative, basically concerned with [...]

In Search of a Midnight Kiss (US, 2007)

Los Angeles may be a ubiquitous location in Hollywood movies but we rarely get a sense of the place; unlike New York which I’m sure – should I ever get to visit – will feel a bit like a movie set. This movies uses introduces us to LA as the protagonists tour the town getting [...]