The second feature in Arrow’s extensive restoration of Walerian Borowczyk’s work, Goto, Isle of Love is a live-action French film that cannot be anything other than the work of a Polish animator. Its venomous contempt for authority and its poker-faced sense of humour are both unmistakably Eastern European, and its […]
Movies & Documentaries
Story of my Death (2013) A Dracula film for the more adventurous moviegoer (Review)
There’s an inherent risk to saying this on the internet these days, but here we go: sometimes spoilers aren’t a bad thing. Every single synopsis or review I’ve read of Albert Serra’s seventh feature film, Story of My Death, mentions a character who doesn’t turn up immediately, and as such […]
Walerian Borowczyk Short Films and Animation (1959 to 1984)(Review)
The story of Michael Brooke’s [EDIT – actually Daniel Bird; see comments section] restoration of the films of Walerian Borowczyk deserves to be film-restorer’s folklore by now, a Cinderella story about one of cinema’s least Disney-esque animators. After facing plenty of indifference, Brooke turned to Kickstarter to try and raise […]
Be My Baby (2013) Gyaru or no, context is everything (Review)
Those who harp on about how awful soap operas are and how the trifecta of Emmerdale, Coronation Street and Eastenders are suffocating TV schedules should spare a thought for people of a similar disposition in Japan. The industry of soap operas is much bigger news over there, with the extreme […]
Paper Moon (1973) Pitch-Perfect Homage to the Golden Age of 1930’s Hollywood (Review)
Films that trade in the retro have become a commodity post-2010, with a countless barrage either slavishly replicating or parodying bygone ages – especially the 1980s. Such films have escaped the cult domain and penetrated the mainstream, truly the mark that something has had its day in the sun. It […]
The Cruise, Camouflage and Shivers (Polish Cinema Vol. III)(Review)
One of the key dilemmas faced by anyone looking to distribute or exhibit foreign-language cinema is this: do you distribute films that offer insights into a different culture, or do you distribute films that are universal? The former, of course, is something that many arthouse habitués would cite as a […]
Tokyo Tribe (2014) Part Manga Movie Part Inspired, One-of-a-Kind Hip-Hopera (Review)
Nobody has quite the same grasp on the enfant terrible director as Japan: the 1960s and 70s had Seijun Suzuki, Kinji Fukusaku, Terou Ishii and countless others; the modern-day has Takashi Miike and the ever-unpredictable Sion Sono, to name just two. Japanese cinema has never had to try hard to […]
Han Gong-Ju (2013) Here’s to the Next Generation of Korean Cinema! (Review)
The Korean New Wave was defined by 3 directors, Kim Jee-Woon, Park Chan-Wook, and Bong Joon-Ho. With them being courted to foreign climes the international stature has seen Korean cinema relegated from the status as the “cool new thing” it used to be. As sad as that it is, it […]
Fruit of Paradise (1970) Vera Chytilova, Free-Form and Unchained (Review)
The utterly unique career of Věra Chytilová, and the story of Czech cinema in general, finds itself at a crossroads with 1970’s Fruit of Paradise, now released on DVD by Second Run Films. It feels like the product of a golden age; as noted in Peter Hames’s hugely informative booklet, […]
Electricity (2014): Unforgettable Showcase of Agyness Deyn’s acting talent (Review)
Right at the start of Bryn Higgins’s sophomore film, there’s a credit for the Wellcome Trust as producers. Having one of the world’s largest financiers of cutting-edge medical research in your opening credits sets out a mission statement; when it comes to medical accuracy, this tale of an epileptic girl […]