There are some epic displays of sleight of hand in Robert Bresson’s tale of crime through desperation, but it’s not much of a thrill ride. Many great filmmakers of crime cinema reference Pickpocket as a genre classic and an enduring influence, but it struggles to maintain that impact today. Read more »
Chilean surrealist Alejandro Jodorowsky returns to filmmaking for the first time in more than 20 years, and the results are every it as bizarre and beautiful as we coupld have hoped for. Loosely depicting his own childhood in Chile, Jodorowsky’s own son, Brontis, plays the director’s father as a strict disciplinarian enamoured by Stalin, while […] Read more »
A small, intimate Parisian dinner party amongst close, forty-something friends and family takes hilarious and at times tragic turns as emotions boil over during the course of one boisterous evening, in this witty and remarkable adaption of a well-loved play. The title comes from a crucial moment when one of the guests, the attractive and […] Read more »
How to follow up Rubber, a movie about a killer tyre who stalks the deserts outside Los Angeles? In my opinion Wrong manages to trump it, by having a plot that’s (marginally) more than a one-joke premise, some great characters and an excellent soundtrack – all courtesy of Quentin Dupieux. When Dolph Springer loses his […] Read more »
I’ve watched and struggled with Gaspar Noe’s surreal exploration of life after death before in the past, but there’s no denying the audacity of its ambition and the impact of its visual style. Not a film I tend to enjoy watching, but it remains a hypnotic curiosity that is occasionally worth revisiting. Find my full […] Read more »
There’s a dark, gallows-humour that runs through François Ozon’s In The House, a somewhat creepy, bookish, but engaging coming-of-age drama. Germain (Fabrice Luchini) is a high-school literature teacher who takes an interest in the somewhat lurid, autobiographical writing of Claude Garcia (Ernst Umhauer) a student. Garcia uses a creative writing assignment to open a window […] Read more »
Charming, if rather slight, French animation that pitches its story of acceptance, friendship and tolerance firmly at a young, impressionable audience. As a result, adults unfamiliar with the characters, who originate from a series of beloved books, may be somewhat resistant to the film’s power to delight, but this simple story of a mouse and […] Read more »
The debut feature from Romain Gavras is an angry, visually arresting drama starring Vincent Cassel and Olivier Barthelemy as frustrated, victimised red heads whose lives collide, and they head out together on a path of aimless vengeance and escalating violence. Unpredictable, yet utterly captivating, this was largely overlooked outside of the festival circuit but is […] Read more »
Incredibly tedious and frustrating period drama from the late Claude Miller, in which Audrey Tautou plays the titular heroine, who is married off to a local landowner only to find her existence suffocating and depressing. There are numerous opportunities throughout the film for the narrative to expand, break free or otherwise develop into something intriguing […] Read more »
Every now and then I like to treat my girlfriend to a bit of no-nonsense onscreen action, and these days “The Stathe” is often a good bet – especially when he’s stripping off, oiling up and kicking ten bells out of a bunch of Euro trash who are looking to do harm to the lovely […] Read more »
Delightfully pitch-black comedy from French satirist Sacha Guitry, who is something of a new discovery for me. Michel Simon plays the woefully unhappy Broconnier who plots to murder his wife by visiting the greatest barrister in the land and confessing to the crime before he has committed it. He then proceeds to carry it out […] Read more »
Claude Chabrol immediately followed up his debut, Le beau Serge, with this altogether more cynical and scathing depiction of city life in the late 1950s. Again he uses lead actors Gerard Blain and Jean-Claude Brialy, but has them switch roles, so Blain plays the naive mummy’s boy from the countryside who arrives in Paris to […] Read more »
Claude Chabrol launches the Nouvelle Vague with this sombre tale of a young man from the city returning to the village where he grew up and attempting to rebuild his relationship with his childhood friend. Check out my Masters of Cinema feature covering this film right here Read more »
The latest from Olivier Assayas follows a group of teenage activists immediately after the famous May 1968 riots in Paris, as they must contend with politics, school, friendship, romance and just being young and libertarian in the late-1960s. The title has been changed from the more literal and less sexy Apres Mai for the film’s […] Read more »
As a big fan of Jacques Audiard and his films (A Prophet, The Beat That My Heart Skipped), as well as stars Marion Cotillard (Inception, La Vie en Rose) and Matthias Schoenaerts (Bullhead), I was primed to really enjoy this engaging drama, particularly off the back of almost uniformly positive buzz following its debut at […] Read more »
I was relieved to discover that Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colours trilogy ends as strongly as it begins, with a deceptively surreal story of a catwalk model who befriends an aging, reclusive former judge, after running over his dog. While Valentine (Irene Jacob) and Jean-Louis Trintignant’s veteran voyeur begin to form a meaningful bond through shared […] Read more »
Sweeping generalizations are often employed when discussing the lengthy filmography of Woody Allen. Whether referring to his “older, funnier films” of the 70s and 80s, or the bleak period of Bergmanesque introspection that followed. Husbands and Wives marked a turning point, and the 90s proved to be a strong decade for Allen. Since the dawn […] Read more »