The Maid / La Nana (2009)
★★★★☆
Replacing a passive-agressive, quarrelsome maid isn’t easy, as Sebastián Silva’s comic gem La Nana shows. It’s class conflict gone the family way.
Hideaway / Le Refuge (2009)
★★★☆☆
With a heroin junkie and her dead lover’s gay brother hiding away together, François Ozon’s Le Refuge is a subdued meditation on parenthood and loss. It’s baby boom and bust.
Contracorriente / Undertow (2009)
★★★★☆
With man-on-man love in a small Peruvian fishing village, Javier Fuentes-León’s Contracorriente has Latin American machismo swimming against a high tide.
Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky (2009)
★★★☆☆
As a passionate affair between two 20th century icons, Jan Kounen’s Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky is a perfumed symphony of style. But where are the heart notes?
Frontier Blues (2009)
★★★☆☆
Set in a border backwater in Northern Iran, Babak Jalali’s Frontier Blues follows four men rapidly losing the plot in a land without women.
Gainsbourg (Vie Héroïque) (2010)
★★★★☆
From chanson to reggae, Joann Sfar’s Gainsbourg is a soul-staking odyssey through Serge’s life and conquests, through Docteur Jekyll Et Monsieur Hyde.
The best cinema in the world
The Best Cinema In The World? OK, we all love cinema. But what about the cinema itself? What’s your favourite cinema? Is it the…
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Film Review: Bluebeard / Barbe Bleue (2009)
★★★☆☆
A faithful adaptation of Perrault’s fairytale, Bluebeard nevertheless conceals a bevy of Catherine Breillat’s favourite themes. But where’s the eroticism?
South Of The Border (2009)
★★★☆☆
Über-director Oliver Stone’s latest documentary film South of the Border offers a provocative glance at the US media’s take on Latin American politics.
Ivul (2009)
★★★☆☆
Biting into the forbidden apple of incest, Andrew Kötting’s Ivul charts the fall of civilisation in a Russian émigré family. Or is he barking up the wrong tree?
When You’re Strange (2009)
★★★☆☆
A medley of grainy super-8 footage, Tom DiCillo’s When You’re Strange strips The Doors down to no-holds-barred exuberance. Or is it just wallowing in the mire?
Wild Grass / Les Herbes Folles (2009)
★★★★☆
Alain Resnais, the great grand-monsieur of French cinema is de retour with Wild Grass a complex, lilting tale of the power of chance.
Villa Amalia (2009)
★★★☆☆
Cheerfully nihilistic, Benoît Jacquot’s Villa Amalia stars Isabelle Huppert as a pianist reinventing her life from scratch on the coast of Naples. O sole mio.
Women Without Men (2009)
★★★☆☆
Iranian visual artist, Shirin Neshat’s directorial debut focuses on the lives of four women set against a backdrop of political turmoil in 1950s Iran.