By Tom von Logue Newth. When it appeared in 1979, Radio On seemed to have few precedents in British cinema. An independent black and white feature, artfully photographed, with minimal narrative or plot, and a thematically-integrated soundtrack of electronic krautrock and new wave ‘hits’, it was the first film by […]
The Joke’s on Who? Exit Through the Gift Shop
By Daniel Lindvall. ‘You could stick all my shit in Tate Modern and have an opening with Tony Blair and Kate Moss on roller blades handing out vol-au-vents and it wouldn’t be as exciting as it is when you go out and paint something big where you shouldn’t do.’ […]
Raising the Spectre of Hope: Savage (Sweden, 2011)
By Daniel Lindvall. It is frequently said that respect is something you have to earn. Proffered as a life-rule this is an unusually stupid thing to say. On the contrary, respect is something we’re morally entitled to from the moment we’re born. Savage (jointly written and directed by Martin Jern […]
In a Better World: ‘The White Man’s Burden’
By Daniel Lindvall. ‘Take up the White Man’s burden/send forth the best ye breed […] To wait in heavy harness/On fluttered folk and wild/Your new-caught, sullen peoples/Half-devil and half-child.’ (Rudyard Kipling, ‘The White Man’s Burden’, 1899.) ‘Half-devil[s] and half-child[ren]’ – that is a description as good as any of […]
Aurora (Romania, 2010)
By Daniel Lindvall. There’s a sequence in Cristi Puiu’s new film, Aurora, where the main character, the middle-aged Viorel (Puiu), drops his 7-8-year-old daughter off at the neighbours’ place, where she’s supposed to wait for her mum to come home. She doesn’t seem to know these neighbours very well. There’s […]
Katalin Varga (Peter Strickland, Romania/UK, 2009)
By Kierran Horner. Over a black screen, sub-titles translate a raised voice; “Open up. Police”, repeated, cut, and a camera sits on someone’s shoulder as they open a door to reveal the sneering, lupine mug of a man with, what seems to be, cranial-mange, surrounded by other assorted, skin-headed aggressors. […]
I Am Curious: Yellow & Blue
By Anders Åberg. [This review of the Criterion editionof Vilgot Sjöman’s films I Am Curious – Yellow and I Am Curious – Blue was originally published in Film International 5, vol. 1, no. 5, 2003. We now republish it online in memory of actress Lena Nyman, who passed away on […]
The Wicker Man (1973): Collector’s Edition
By Deirdre Devers. ‘You are despicable little liars’, spits Sgt. Howie (Edward Woodward) to a room full of schoolgirls during the first act of Robin Hardy’s cult classic, The Wicker Man. Sgt. Howie wields the full authority of his policeman’s uniform when he arrives on the idyllic and remote island […]
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (4 Luni, 3 Saptamini si 2 Zile, 2007)
By Steven Yates. One of the most surprising successes of 2007 was Cristian Mingiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (4 Luni, 3 Saptamini si 2 Zile). A film set in the Ceausescu period and detailing the events prior to an illegal abortion in a hotel may not have […]
The French Old Wave: Claude Sautet’s Classe tous risques
January 1, 2009
By Tim Palmer. Commemorated widely, the French New Wave is basking in the afterglow of its fiftieth anniversary. Few today dispute the resonance of this movement—its guerilla modes of production, its intellectual auteurs, its playfully non-traditional aesthetics, its joyous cinephilia. But despite all the nostalgia, it is worth remembering that […]