Running from the Past
Byzantium, Baron Blood, Mud
From the search for El Dorado in Werner Herzog's Aguirre, Wrath of God, to a cut-throat Mexico in John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Thomas Arslan's Canadian-set Gold, we explore the failed adventures of some of cinema's cursed protagonists in our latest theme.
Out in cinemas this month, there is some dazzling horror on offer in Neil Jordan's Byzantium. In Pedro Almodóvar's latest comedy, I'm So Excited, a plane is doomed to fly in circles above Spain, while a Danish cargo ship is overrun by pirates in Tobias Lindholm's tense thriller A Hijacking. We follow Matthew McConaughey running from the past in Jeff Nichols's Mud, and we also have a review of classic 1970s drama The King of Marvin Gardens.
Out on DVD/Blu-ray, dreams are dashed in Billy Liar, while Carlos Saura's Cría Cuervos offers a haunting reflection on memory, loss and history. We trace the sinister characters in Mario Bava's Baron Blood and Black Sabbath, and take a look back at the Polish cinema classic Illumination and Henri-George Clouzot's The Murderer Lives at Number 21.
In features, we have a special interview with John Hawkes. In Reel Sounds, Robert Barry explores the music-less soundtrack of Bruno Dumont's Hors Satan, while in our Comic Strip Review we revisit the wildly weird Marebito. We report from Sci-Fi-London and the Istanbul Film Festival, and in Alter Ego author Kate Worsley's filmic alter ego is Commander Ericson in The Cruel Sea. ■
