THE SUN’S BURIAL
Nagisa Oshima’s 1960 The Sun’s Burial is a radically nihilistic portrayal of post-war Japanese youth.
Review by Sarah Cronin
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Terror’s Advocate
Terror’s Advocate is a chilling study of one man’s role in the entangled web of twentieth-century terrorism. Told with the dramatic pacing of a political thriller, Barbet Schroeder’s intense and compelling documentary features an astonishing cast of characters, from resistance fighters to terrorists to war criminals, who have been witnesses and participants in decades of political upheaval, all linked by the same lawyer – Jacques Vergí¨s.
Review by Sarah Cronin
THERE WILL BE BLOOD
There Will Be Blood is a brilliant, if at times difficult, film about greed, vengeance, and the loss of faith that comes with the overwhelming, burning desire for success.
Review by Sarah Cronin
MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS
Deserving the lukewarm reception it got at last year’s Cannes festival, Wong Kar Wai’s first American feature is visually striking but disappointingly banal and unsubstantial.
Review by Sarah Cronin
4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS
Winner of this year’s Cannes festival, the story of a backstreet abortion paints a powerful portrayal of a Romania tyrannised by communism.
Review by Sarah Cronin
TSAI MING-LIANG
Released simultaneously in the UK in November, Tsai Ming-liang’s The Wayward Cloud (2005) and I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone (2006) are two disparate and challenging pieces of work from this Asian auteur. While both movies explore similar themes (loneliness, urban dislocation, desire, an obsession with water) The Wayward Cloud is the more immediately engaging film of the two.
Review by Sarah Cronin
THE COUNTERFEITERS
Austrian director Stefan Ruzowitzky’s compelling film explores the terrible dilemma that confronted the Jewish prisoners recruited for the operation. He has crafted a unique approach to the Holocaust genre, forsaking sentimentality for moral ambiguity, probing the motives of both the prisoners and their Nazi captors, in and out of the camps.
Review by Sarah Cronin
YELLA
Written and directed by the German filmmaker Christian Petzold, Yella is an intriguing, suspenseful mystery with a singular clarity of vision. It is constructed like a jigsaw puzzle and each scene cleverly fits together to reveal a film that is much more than the sum of its parts. Winner of the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 2007 Berlinale, Nina Hoss delivers an excellent performance as the title character – a disillusioned woman desperate to free herself from an oppressive, unsuccessful marriage.
Review by Sarah Cronin
HALLAM FOE
Both thriller and comedy, Hallam Foe is an enticing coming-of-age film about love, grief and redemption. Directed by David Mackenzie (Young Adam), and based on the novel by Peter Jinks, it’s dominated by Jamie Bell’s exciting performance as the title character – a screwed-up teenager addicted to voyeurism.
Review by Sarah Cronin
12:08 EAST OF BUCHAREST
At 12:08pm on December 22, 1989, the Romanian dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, fled the capital city of Bucharest in the face of overwhelming protests against his authoritarian regime. That moment is heralded as the collapse of communism in the Eastern Bloc country, and the beginning of an uncertain transition towards democracy. Corneliu Porumboiu’s Caméra d’Or winner for best debut feature, 12.08 East of Bucharest, is a sparsely elegant, humorous film that reflects on those events sixteen years on.
Review by Sarah Cronin