Rebellion (L’ordre et la morale)

A passionate and angry film about the brutal suppression of a minor uprising on a New Caledonian island in 1988, timed to coincide with a referendum on the islands’ independence due to take place in 2014. As an example of colonial arrogance this story of a cynically prosecuted hostage rescue is also timely given the…

In The House

I saw this as a bit of a return to form for director Francois Ozon after the frankly disappointing Potiche. A literally gifted 16 year old boy insinuates himself into the lives of his best friend’s family and then his teacher’s (Fabrice Luchini) whose wife (Kristen Scott Thomas) provides the sounding board for the output…

Robot & Frank

This was both fun and interesting. Frank, the peerless Frank Langella, is an elderly curmudgeon living alone in upstate NY and showing early signs of dementia. His son (James Marsden) is concerned. Unable to care long distance and unwilling to consign his father to a care home, he hits upon a novel solution and leaves…

Arbitrage

On the surface this was a surprisingly old fashioned film with a strong central performance and solid support. But once you started to unpick it you found a horrid mess underneath, with a highly dubious message. Gere is some screen presence. In Pretty Woman he charmed us into forgetting we were watching a prostitute with…

The Place Beyond the Pines

  I suppose if you unpick this you might say that it is wildly implausible. But to me this had an epic almost mythic feel. It made me think of Greek tragedy or some classic work of Victorian gothic fiction where the traits of the fathers are subtly reincarnated in their hapless sons. Ryan Gosling…

Side Effects

  After so many adaptations, remakes and “based on real events”, it was really refreshing to have an original screenplay. Especially so when Soderburgh is on top form as director, cinematographer and editor in chief. If this is his swan song then it is an appropriately high note to go out on. At last he…

Broken

Broken idol, broken heads People sleeping in broken beds Broken dishes, broken parts Streets are filled with broken hearts Broken words never meant to be spoken Everything is Broken. (Dylan) This is a very promising debut feature from Rufus Norris which rattled along and with a running time of just 91 minutes was never in…

Post Tenebras Lux

  Hard to know what to make of this. The title is Latin for Light after Darkness and whilst there seemed plenty of the latter I’m not sure there was too much of the former. If this really was an autobiographical film then I don’t envy Carlos Reygadas his life to date even if he…

Lore

  Rather oddly this German/Australian co production felt like a grim companion piece to The Sound of Music – telling the story of Lore, her sister, two younger brothers and baby Peter as they travelled from their home in the Black Forest to their grandmothers house on the Coast in the dog days of WW2.…

Compliance

Almost the first thing to appear are the words “BASED ON REAL EVENTS” 10 feet high and occupying the whole screen. I felt uneasy. Craig Zobel’s  imagined reconstruction plays like an updated version of the famous Milgram experiment of the 1960s where subjects were instructed by white coated, clipboard wielding authority figures to administer electric…