Flee

A Danish animated documentary. Now that’s not something you see everyday. But perhaps we should. With the ignominious Anglo – US withdrawal from Afghanistan still fresh in the mind, it seems only right that we reflect on some of the painful personal stories which our ridiculous international adventurism has helped create. Not just that but…

Death on the Nile

Pyramids. Check. Camels. Check. A Snake charmer. Check. Mummies. Check. Cleopatra. Check. Sand Dunes. Check. 1000 thread cotton sheets. Check. Abu Simbel by moonlight. Checkmate. The only things missing here were the Gallagher brothers and Mo Salah. I went into this expecting big, old fashioned, dumb fun from Mr Branagh and his chums and I…

Parallel Mothers

Not a film to watch if you have red/green colour blindness. Almodovar’s films are always garishly colourful but I can’t remember one where the colour symbolism was quite as in yer face as here – and it’s all about contrasts. Red is danger. Green is peace. Red is blood. Green is chlorophyll. Red is stop.…

The Colour Room

“No man can appreciate or produce things of beauty whose colour sense is outraged every day by the grime and soot that covers everything”. This somewhat clumsy quotation from The Pottery Gazette of 1919 appears over the opening credits of Claire McCarthy’s disarming film, before dissolving to leave only the word “Man” visible. No man…