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Films From the South #8: Fireworks Wednesday (Chaharshanbe-soori, Iran 2006)
Asghar Farhadi is the second of the featured directors in the festival with his latest film Nader and Simin: A Separation showing in the Main Competition. That film has already been shown in many...
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A picture beyond the photographer’s intention: a semiotic analysis of Blow-Up
This paper was submitted by Giuseppe Raudino (see contact details below) Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up (UK 1966) is a deep reflection about reality and meaning. What is real? Why is that real? And...
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Dead Man’s Shoes (UK, 2004)
What happens when you cross a revenge movie with British social realism? In this case you get a not entirely successful, but certainly interesting, film. Co-writer, with star Paddy Considine, and...
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BIFF 2012 #13: Toomelah (Australia 2011)
As I watched this film I found myself engrossed but also at times bewildered and definitely disturbed. Toomelah was screened as part of a celebration and exchange between Bradford and Sydney as the...
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Detachment (US 2011)
British director Tony Kaye is a ‘controversial’ figure in Hollywood following the furore that erupted around his first fiction feature American History X (US 1998) – when he attempted to disown the...
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LFF 2012 #1: Memories Look at Me (China 2012)
Memories Look at Me was a good place to start my visit to the 2012 London Film Festival. Writer-director Song Fang is known to arthouse audiences in the West as the young Chinese film student who...
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Garage (Ireland 2007)
The recent release of What Richard Did by Lenny Abrahamson (review to follow) has prompted me to go back to look at his earlier release from 2007. Both this and his 2004 first feature Adam and Paul...
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BIFF 2013 #11: MDF Films of Toronto
This screening offered a double bill of recent films from the Canadian independent film producers MDFF or ‘Medium Density Fibreboard Films’. Trying to research the group online I’ve found...
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The Woman in the Fifth (La femme du Vème, France/UK/Poland 2011)
There are many interesting ways into The Woman in the Fifth. It’s another French film in which Kristin Scott Thomas plays a role which requires her character to adopt a background to explain the fact...
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Before Midnight (US 2013)
So here is the most talked about film of the moment – a film which must mean something to anyone who has ever been in a relationship of any kind that has lasted more than a few years. It’s a...
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Stories We Tell (Canada 2012)
I was very much looking forward to Sarah Polley’s film. I hoped that I would enjoy it and I did – very much. This is a wonderful film in many different ways. A great deal has been written about the...
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Hidden Agenda (UK 1990)
With Jimmy’s Hall in UK cinemas at the moment I’m looking back and re-viewing the films Ken Loach has made about events in Ireland. Hidden Agenda is one of the two ‘odd’ films that Loach made in the...
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Grand Central (France 2013)
First a confession. I found this a puzzling film. It was difficult to watch for various reasons but it made me think and there are many good things about it. I first wrote a blog post asking questions...
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Chronicle of a Summer (Chronique d’un été, France 1961)
Chronicle of a Summer is one of the most significant documentaries ever made; as stated at the start of the film: ‘This film was not played by actors, but lived by men and women who have given a few...
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The Green Ray (Le rayon vert, France 1986)
The Bechdel test is mentioned regularly on the feminist sites I look at and The Green Ray, known as Summer in America, certainly passes. It follows Delphine (Marie Rivière) as she decides what to do...
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Elena (Russia 2011)
After Leviathan I’m working backwards to look at the earlier work of writer-director Andrey Zvyagintsev. Elena was his third feature film and it too won a major Cannes prize. I remember Elena‘s UK...
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The Green Ray (Le rayon vert, France 1986)
The Bechdel test is mentioned regularly on the feminist sites I look at and The Green Ray, known as Summer in America, certainly passes. It follows Delphine (Marie Rivière) as she decides what to do...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Elena (Russia 2011)
After Leviathan I’m working backwards to look at the earlier work of writer-director Andrey Zvyagintsev. Elena was his third feature film and it too won a major Cannes prize. I remember Elena‘s UK...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Vie sauvage (Wild Life, France-Belgium 2014)
This film is showing as part of ‘Summer of French Cinema 2015‘, six films screening across six different cinemas offered by a partnership between Picturehouse Cinemas and the French film export agency...
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The Green Ray (Le rayon vert, France 1986)
The Bechdel test is mentioned regularly on the feminist sites I look at and The Green Ray, known as Summer in America, certainly passes. It follows Delphine (Marie Rivière) as she decides what to do...
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