Not just a bad pun? (Perfect Sense, David MacKenzie, UK, 2010, 90 mins) Perfect Sense presents itself as a major event at the festival, reuniting director David MacKenzie and star Ewan McGregor – last seen together in the former’s dazzling debut Young Adam, which premiered at Edinburgh in 2003. It rapidly became apparent this is [...]
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Very hush-hush (Page Eight, David Hare, UK, 2011, 100 mins) The world of secret intelligence is one of private encounters behind closed doors: very hush-hush. There is something inherently dramaturgical about such scenarios, whose language games unfold in the absence of extras and their entire hubbub. This works to David Hare’s advantage: prolific he may [...]
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Obsessive compulsion (Bobby Fischer Against the World, Liz Garbus, USA / UK / Iceland, 2010, 92 mins) The decline of Bobby Fischer, one time chess world champion, is a sad tale to tell. And so it is to the credit of director Liz Garbus that her biography of the late great delights primarily in his [...]
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The walls are closing in on Coco… (Fase 7, Nicolás Goldbart, Argentina, 2010, 96 mins) Coco (Daniel Hendler) and Pipi (Jazmin Stuart) are not, despite their names, a pair of Argentinean glove puppets. Rather, they are a young couple living a somnambulistic existence in their new-build city-centre apartment. Phase 7 at first appears to be [...]
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Bliss and the Abyss 2010 has been the year of the underdog: unlikely heroes and darkly ambiguous endings have dominated Hollywood narrative cinema, with a few rule-proving exceptions (predominantly from the animated stable). Several outstanding movies achieved unexpected success, perhaps due to an otherwise mediocre slate of releases. This story you know. Meanwhile, beyond the [...]
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“I don’t give a damn ’bout my bad reputation” (The Runaways, Floria Sigismondi, USA, 2010, 106 mins) Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) and Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning) are provocative teenage girls in misogynist times. Both want to challenge gender norms, and idolise musicians who dispute the status quo. Cherie introduces herself, after a menstrual mishap, with [...]
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“Why is the whole world staring at me?” (My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?, Werner Herzog, US, 2009, 90mins) “My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?”. A substitute for the pronouncement made by Mark Yavorsky’s mother as he ran her through with an antique katana. A quote both from the Bible and [...]
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This isn’t heavy metal. It’s radioactive. (Black Death, Christopher Smith, UK/Germany, 2010, 101 mins) A crop of encouraging reviews sprouted before Black Death. There were inevitable comparisons, some apposite – Witchfinder General, The Wicker Man – others quite tangential – Aguirre Wrath of God, or sixties Bergman. There too were entirely inaccurate conclusions – Black [...]
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