After Un Chien Andalou (1928), L’Age d’Or (1930) and Land Without Bread in 1932 Luis Buí±uel didn’t direct another film until 1947. A period dubbing American films into Spanish and producing mainstream films was followed by the disruption of two wars and a move to America, where he worked briefly managing the film programme at MoMA.
Review by Paul Huckerby
Quentin Tarantino’s main gift to the world of cinema in the last year or two was the wretched Hostel, of which the best I can say is that it spared me any nagging ambivalence by marrying political ineptitude with perfect aesthetic nullity. I mention this at the head of a review of Seijun Suzuki’s Branded to Kill because, when he is not frittering away his credit by endorsing incompetent horror flicks, Tarantino is re-building his stock by referencing cult classics whose relative unavailability safeguards him from embarrassing comparisons. Until now…
Review by Stephen Thomson
Some cultural commentators will automatically applaud anything presented as ‘youth’ or ‘street’ for fear of looking like old farts. This has very much worked in the favour of Kourtrajme (French street slang for ‘short film’), an urban collective of young film-makers, musicians and graphic designers, to which Kim Chapiron, director of Satan, belongs.
Review by Virginie Sélavy
A directorial debut from Andrea Arnold (winner of an Oscar for Best Short with Wasp in 2003), Red Road pulls out all the stops in an attempt to get to the heart of loss and mourning Glasgow style.
Review by CB
Riding confidently on a growing wave of anti-capitalist sentiment in Western culture, Bamako should have no trouble finding an audience. Set in the capital of Mali and filmed in the home of director Abderrahmane Sissako’s father, Bamako is an elegant, poignant – and prejudiced – attack on the consequences of IMF and World Bank policy in Africa.
Review by Sarah Cronin
Just over a year ago the most riveting debut since Steven Spielberg’s Duel was released in the UK to great press acclaim but little public notice. 13 (Tzameti) was the first feature by young French-educated Georgian director Gela Babluani, and against the depressing background of a French cinema determined to be as vapid as Hollywood, it felt like a jolt of electricity.
Review by Virginie Sélavy
After making Blackboards in Kurdistan, twenty-three-year-old Iranian film-maker Samira Makhmalbaf has chosen post-Taliban Afghanistan as the setting of her third feature, the winner of the 2003 Cannes Grand Jury Prize. The film tells the story of Noqreh, a young woman who wants to be president of her country. Unbeknown to her fanatically religious father…
Review by Virginie Sélavy
Almost ten years after the acclaimed Ghost in the Shell, Japanese anime master Mamoru Oshii has delivered a new episode of his existential cyber-thriller. In the year 2032 a number of doll-like female robots designed for sexual purposes have gone haywire and killed their masters.
Review by Virginie Sélavy
VíÂctor Erice’s 1973 classic is a wonderfully dreamy, slow-paced evocation of rural Spain just after the end of the Civil War, seen through the eyes of six-year-old Ana. Set in the barren plains of Castile, the film starts with the projection of James Whale’s Frankenstein, brought to the village by a travelling cinema.
Review by Virginie Sélavy
Much lauded on its release in 1964, Hiroshi Teshigahara’s Woman of the Dunes, adapted by Kobo Abe from his own novel, has certainly stood the test of time. A pared-down allegorical reflection on the human condition set in an oppressive, limitless sand and sea landscape, it is also an intense, gripping drama that keeps you hooked until the deeply troubling end.
Review by Virginie Sélavy