Red Road (UK-Denmark, 2006)

Red Road asks the question about what sort of life you can lead after you feel, following a traumatic event, there is no longer any meaning to life. It does it via the thriller genre primarily through its labyrinthine narrative; it’s a full 90 minutes into the movie before we actually know what happened. The [...]

The Silence of Lorna (Le Silence de Lorna, 2008, Belgium, France, Italy, Germany,)

There have been a number of films this century that have dealt with migration: the best include the thriller of Dirty Pretty Things (UK, 2002), the abstruse Code: Unknown (2000) and the realist Ghosts (UK, 2006). The Silence of Lorna is also realist with its handheld camera and focus on life in the margins. The [...]

Only Yesterday (Omohide poro poro, 1991, Japan)

The only film I had seen by Isao Takahata was Grave of the Fireflies (1988), an astonishing depiction of post-war Japan. Only Yesterday is very different, a pastoral evocation of a second ‘coming of age’ of the 27 year old teacher who ‘takes’ her 10 year old self on holiday.  At the start, the cross-cutting [...]

Waltz with Bashir (Vals im Bashir, Israel, Germany, France, US)

There’s been some discussion about how Persepolis and Waltz the Bashir have brought animation to ‘maturity’ with their serious take on the world. No doubt this remark has been made many times and is a symptom of people suddenly having their preconceptions about animation challenged. Why animate a film/drama documentary about the massacres in Sabra [...]