Confessions: Tricky revelations, poetic admissions and Catholic guilt

Our February theme was inspired by the brilliant, devilishly twisted revenge tale Confessions – read our interview with director Tetsuya Nakashima, who also made Kamikaze Girls and Memories of Matsuko, and watch the trailer. Also on cinema screens this month, Howl explores Allen Ginsberg’s revolutionary confessional poem. We also have articles on nunsploitation, and on faith and guilt in William Peter Blatty’s Exorcist trilogy, as well as a Reel Sounds column on I Walked with a Zombie.

Other cinema releases include elegant nightmare Never Let Me Go, adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro by Alex Garland, intense Australian crime drama Animal Kingdom and Mohamed Al-Daradji’s Son of Babylon. In the DVDs, we review eerie French psycho-thriller In Their Sleep, Milo&#353 Forman’s 60s Czech New Wave classic A Blonde in Love and Fritz Lang’s 1941 espionage thriller Man Hunt, and we have a Comic Strip Review of The Last Lovecraft.

In Short Cuts, we report on the music programme of the London Short Film Festival while writer Mary Horlock chooses an animated furry creature as her filmic alter ego and lo-fi psych trio Sic Alps tell us about their favourite films in the Jukebox. In the blog, you can read about Diana Thater’s video installation Chernobyl, The Antonioni Project and the Berlinale, including a feature on Shibuya Minoru.

PODCAST:
The Antonioni Project: Alex Fitch talks to director Ivo van Hove about his innovative theatrical production The Antonioni Project, which combines elements of cinema and theatre as it blends three screenplays by Michelangelo Antonioni with the latest technological achievements.