Patience (After Sebald) sees Grant Gee’s richly-textured path meander through the Suffolk countryside and the work of the acclaimed Anglo-German writer.
Patience (After Sebald)
★★★★★
Post-War Paths by Laura Bennett
CAUTION: Here be spoilers.
Better known for his rock-band documentaries, Grant Gee’s latest feature-length film focuses on retracing the steps of the internationally acclaimed Anglo-German writer and academic W.G. (Max) Sebald. Widely tipped as a potential Nobel Prize winner before his untimely death in a car accident in 2001, fame came to Sebald relatively late in life, on the translation of his works from his native German tongue into the English of his adopted home. A professor of European Literature at the University of East Anglia, Sebald set off one summer to walk the length of Suffolk to “dispel emptiness” after completing a long and gruelling stint of work. This walk formed the basis for his book The Rings of Saturn, the work on which Gee chooses to concentrate in this film.
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Tags: 2012 · Barbara Hui · Caspar David Friedrich · cinema · documentary · dogandwolf · film · film review · Grant Gee · Laura Bennett · Patience (After Sebald) · Reviews · The Rings of Saturn · WG Sebald
Respected Afro-British director John Akomfrah’s haunting film The Nine Muses is an unusual, genre defying, literary based contemplation of migration, memory and the power of elegy.
The Nine Muses
★★★★★
On Distant Shores by Laura Bennett
CAUTION: Here be spoilers
In simple terms John Akomfrah’s The Nine Muses can be summed up as an unlikely trilogy of Homer’s Odyssey, the African diaspora and the bleak and beautiful landscapes of Alaska. Combining these three elements, renowned Ghana-born director Akomfrah’s latest film is broken up into nine overlapping musical chapters mixing archival material and a narration of texts from some of the behemoths of classic European literature: Dante, Shakespeare, Joyce and Homer himself, to name a few you “might” have heard of.
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Tags: 2010 · Arvo Pärt · cinema · Dante · dogandwolf · film · film review · Homer · James Joyce · John Akomfrah · Laura Bennett · London Film Festival · Odyssey · Reviews · Shakespeare · The Nine Muses · UK
Michael Fassbender is at his leg-tapping best in Steve McQueen’s Shame, a tale of lonely frustration, sexual addiction and grim redemption.
Shame
★★★★★
Sinnerman by Mark Wilshin
CAUTION: Here be spoilers
While Hunger wasn’t so much about the hollow, echoing sensation of life without food as its political and cultural significance in Northern Ireland and beyond, Shame is very much emotion down and dirty on the personal level. It may not flag every blush-red wince or burning flush, but charting a course through the tawdry exploits of a sex addict, Steve McQueen’s second film Shame culminates nevertheless in the irreversible breakdown of an irrepressible hedonist. Like a junky obsessed with his next fix of prostitutes, porn and pick-ups, Michael Fassbender is a magnificent blend of charming and frightening in this superb story of the sexaholic Brandon who just can’t escape his loins.
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Tags: 2011 · Carey Mulligan · cinema · dogandwolf · film · film review · Hunger · London Film Festival · Mark Wilshin · Michael Fassbender · Reviews · Shame · Steve McQueen · Wilshin
The Dirty Dozen
Hm, the January blues. It’s enough to make you want to curl up inside a darkened room. Which is fortunate, as there were so many great films in 2011, there’s a lot of catching up to do. Most shamefully, I missed out on Lars von Trier’s Melancholia, and perhaps most painfully, Gianni Di Gregorio’s follow-up to Mid-August Lunch – The Salt Of Life. But there were some unexpected highlights along the way, not only from London’s Gay And Lesbian Film Festival, the London Spanish Film Festival and the London Film Festival, but also some serendipitous finds, such as Sophie Heldman’s Satte Farben Vor Schwarz, Aureliano Amadei’s 20 Sigarette, André Téchiné’s Impardonnables or discovering Bernardo Bertolucci’s Before The Revolution.
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Tags: 127 Hours · 20 Sigarette · 2010 · 2011 · 5x2 · Aki Kaurismäki · Andrew Haigh · Andrij Parekh · Aureliano Amadei · Before The Revolution · Bernardo Bertolucci · Biutiful · Black Power Mixtape · Black Swan · Blue Valentine · Cannes · Catherine Deneuve · cinema · Derek Cianfrance · documentary · dogandwolf · film · film review · François Ozon · Gérard Depardieu · Gianni Di Gregorio · Howl · In A Better World · Involuntary · Jessica Chastain · Lars Von Trier · Le Havre · Lionel Shriver · LLGFF · Lubna Azabal · Lynne Ramsay · Mark Wilshin · Markus Schleinzer · Melancholia · Michael · Michel Hazanavicius · Mid-August Lunch · Norwegian Wood · Nuri Bilge Ceylan · Oslo August 31st · Palme d'Or · Paolo Sorrentino · Play · Potiche · Reviews · Ruben Östlund · Satte Farben Vor Schwarz · Sean Penn · Sophie Heldman · Susanne Bier · Take Shelter · Tambien La Lluvia · Terence Davies · Terrence Malick · The Artist · The Deep Blue Sea · The King's Speech · The Salt Of Life · The Skin I Live In · The Tree Of Life · This Must Be The Place · Tilda Swinton · Trollhunter · We Need To Talk About Kevin · We Were Here · Weekend · Wilshin · Wuthering Heights
Prolific Franco-Chilean director, Raúl Ruiz’s penultimate film, Mysteries of Lisbon, is a labyrinthine, pan-European, Proustian epic that twists and turns across the generations.
Mysteries of Lisbon
★★★★★
The Art of Memory by Laura Bennett
His final fully-complete film finished not long before his death, aged 70, in August 2011, Mysteries of Lisbon is Ruiz’s swansong and crowns a supremely accomplished legacy. A historical journey focusing on the lives and loves of the early-nineteenth century Portuguese aristocracy, Mysteries of Lisbon’s complex intrigue mirrors the dense alleyways of the Portuguese capital’s Moorish Alfama quarter. Lasting a full four and a half hours, free rein is given to Ruiz’s creative vision with this adaptation of the novel of the same name by the writer Camilo Castelo Branco. The plot pivots around the initially unknown ancestry of an apparently orphaned boy, Joao, accompanied throughout by his protector, the nonchalantly multi-lingual priest Padre Dinis, who slowly reveals the truth and, it later transpires, also has a story of his own to tell.
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Tags: 2010 · Camilo Castelo Branco · cinema · dogandwolf · film · film review · Laura Bennett · London Film Festival · Mistérios de Lisboa · Mysteries Of Lisbon · Portugal · Proust · Raúl Ruiz · Reviews · Time Regained
With dazzling performances from Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo, Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist is a vibrant homage to silent films and the talkies’ falling stars.
The Artist
★★★★★
Modern Talking by Mark Wilshin
CAUTION: Here be spoilers
There’s no getting round it, The Artist is a silent movie. And as we enter the third age of 3D, let alone talkies, the absurd anachronism of making a silent film has its own curious charm. It’s no doubt been done before, in comedies like Jacques Tati’s Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot and Mel Brooks’ satirical Silent Movie or more recently Guy Maddin’s Brand Upon the Brain! and Aki Kaurismäki’s Juha. And yet The Artist’s self-reflective stomp around the transition from silent to talkie, playfully and acrobatically incorporating sound and speechlessness into its narrative, makes it something of a homage to a lost art and its fallen matinee idols. Despite being rooted in the past with its fatalistic Sunset Boulevard sensibilities, The Artist still has something to say about the seismic shifts in the landscape of cinema, as the battle for 3D rages in multiplexes around the globe. And while The Artist has a joyful joie de vivre, 3D is big, bold and brash. Just like Norma Desmond. It’s just the pictures that are getting small.
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Tags: 2011 · Audrey Hepburn · Bérénice Bejo · Bernard Herrmann · Breakfast At Tiffany's · cinema · Citizen Kane · dogandwolf · Douglas Sirk · film · film review · France · Fred Astaire · Ginger Rogers · Jean Dujardin · Kelly Reichardt · L'Artiste · Las Acacias · London Film Festival · Mark Wilshin · Meek's Cutoff · Michel Hazanavicius · Pablo Giorgelli · Reviews · Sylvain Chomet · The Artist · The Illusionist · Vertigo · Wilshin
A slowly elegant meditation on intimacy and friendship, Pablo Giorgelli’s Las Acacias will have you screaming from the back seat with glee,”Are we nearly there yet?”
Las Acacias
★★★★★
Rolling Family by Mark Wilshin
CAUTION: Here be spoilers
The South American road movie follows its own path. Unlike its counterpart north of the border, it’s down to earth and minimalist – no showboating rebel-rousing or iconic landscapes here. Walter Salles’ The Motorcycle Diaries and upcoming adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road are the closest it gets to Hollywood, the road movie as a journey of self discovery. Argentinian films though, like Carlos Sorín’s Historias Mínimas and Bombón El Perro or Pablo Trapero’s Familia Rodante are more reminiscent of Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy, intimate journeys of hidden politics and ruminating friendships. And Pablo Giorgelli’s Las Acacias is no exception.
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Tags: 2011 · Argentina · Bombón El Perro · Carlos Sorín · cinema · dogandwolf · Familia Rodante · film · film review · Historias Mínimas · Jack Kerouac · Kelly Reichardt · Las Acacias · London Film Festival · Lucrecia Martel · Mark Wilshin · Old Joy · On The Road · Pablo Giorgelli · Pablo Trapero · Reviews · The Headless Woman · The Motorcycle Diaries · Walter Salles · Wilshin
Our man in the Vatican, Nanni Moretti’s We Have A Pope delights both in the vibrant ritual of the papal conclave and rattling its cardinals’ chasubles.
We Have A Pope
★★★★★
The Vatican Cellars by Mark Wilshin
CAUTION: Here be spoilers
While the recent history of the Holy See may have been blighted by silence on child abuse and allegations of money laundering, Nanni Moretti takes the death of Pope John Paul II and the election of Pope Benedict XVI as the inspiration of his papal satire. A series of wishful-thinking what-ifs, Moretti climbs inside the Vatican’s closed doors, not as a documentarist but as a fiction filmmaker. With thousands of extras and astonishing dominance over St Peter’s Square and the Sistine Chapel, it’s tempting to think at least part of We Have A Pope was shot in 2005 – a 35mm documentary of Cardinal Ratzinger’s inauguration. But with comic asides, such as the dense journalist who mistakes black smoke for white, and the papal conclave suspended in disbelief while their elected candidate disappears, reduced to a frustrated in-house squabbling, pushy psychoanalysts and clerical volleyball, we’re in a Moretti kind of wonderland.
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Tags: 2011 · Aprile · Caravaggio · Chekhov · cinema · dogandwolf · film · film review · Habemus Papam · Il Caimano · Italy · Jerzy Stuhr · London Film Festival · Mark Wilshin · Michel Piccoli · Nanni Moretti · Reviews · The Seagull · The Son's Room · We Have A Pope · Wilshin
With thunderous performances by Jessica Chastain and Michael Shannon, Jeff Nichols’ Take Shelter is a mind blowing twister of mental illness, austerity America and the apocalypse.
Take Shelter
★★★★★
A Mighty Storm by Mark Wilshin
CAUTION: Here be spoilers
A storm is coming. Or is it? A storm is coming. Or is it a dream?
You might have thought that a lack of distinction between reality and dream sequences might get repetitive or boring. But when it’s a film about paranoid schizophrenia, the absence of clarity feels strangely appropriate. The hallucinations and delusions Curtis suffers from all start with a mega-storm which brings an oily rain that turns loved ones and strangers alike into violent attackers. And as the twister season starts in Ohio, worlds collide as reality and dream dovetail each other and leave our lonely hero lost in a storm.
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Tags: 2011 · Adam Stone · cinema · dogandwolf · film · film review · Jeff Nichols · Jessica Chastain · London Film Festival · Mark Wilshin · Michael Shannon · Reviews · Take Shelter · USA · Wilshin
Documenting five testimonies of San Francisco’s AIDS crisis, Bill Weber and David Weissman’s We Were Here brings the battle to the people.
We Were Here
★★★★★
Apocalypse Now by Mark Wilshin
CAUTION: Here be spoilers
It’s hard to wax analytical about such a simple, yet powerfully emotional documentary as Weissman and Weber’s We Were Here. Put simply, it’s five survivors of San Francisco’s Eighties’ Aids crisis bearing witness and remembering the loved ones who fell. With broken voiced interviewee upon teary-eyed talking head, We Were Here ramps up the emotion to a fever pitch as it recreates the gay community in the bay from its inception round Castro Street and the assassination of Harvey Milk to the present day. And while David Weissman and Bill Weber’s documentary couldn’t be more different to their Cisco drag pop pic The Cockettes, We Were Here in all its ugly, pointless tragedy is a homage to the Bay and its indefatigable denizens.
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Tags: 2011 · Bill Weber · cinema · David Weissman · documentary · dogandwolf · film · film review · gay · Mark Wilshin · Queer Cinema · Reviews · Stonewall Uprising · The Cockettes · We Were Here · Wilshin
Film Review: The Artist / L'Artiste (2011)