An extended family gathers for an eight-year-old’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles-themed birthday party. This is not some outer suburb of an American city, however: this is 1993 Belgrade, a post-Yugoslavia world of breakaway republics, civil strife and runaway inflation. Celts is … Continue reading MIFF REVIEW: Celts (2021)
Mikio Naruse is one of the key early directors of Japanese cinema, having made his directorial debut with Mr and Mrs Swordplay in 1930 (a silent film, now sadly lost) and continuing to direct through to his death in 1969. While other … Continue reading REVIEW: Ginza Cosmetics (1951)
Narrative cinema is a broad medium with seemingly endless potential for disrupting common tropes, experimenting with form, and subverting audience expectations. That said, the further a filmmaker strays from the accepted mainstream the more challenging their work will become for … Continue reading REVIEW: A Korean in Paris (2015)
What could have been a noisy melodrama is instead a thoughtful, warm, and pleasant slice of life in Paz Fábrega’s Aurora – the third narrative feature from the talented Costa-Rican filmmaker. Professional architect and part-time art teacher Luisa (Rebecca Woodbridge) finds … Continue reading MIFF REVIEW: Aurora (2021)
A promising foundation and strong performances suggest a great independent film in A Brixton Tale, but subsequent developments wind up making this London-set drama wobble on its axis a little. It is a deep shame, because all of the ingredients for … Continue reading REVIEW: A Brixton Tale (2021)
A chance meeting leads to a day of romance in this odd, modest little drama from Taiwan. Broadly akin to an Asian remake of Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise (1995), director Lin Yu-hsien adds an unusual level of metatextuality to its simple … Continue reading REVIEW: Su Mi Ma Sen, Love (2009)
An impulsive act of rebellion leads to a religious crisis in Teona Strugar Mitevska’s timely and compact drama God Exists, Her Name is Petrunya. Produced in North Macedonia in 2019, it boldly tackles the heavy influence of religion in that country … Continue reading REVIEW: God Exists, Her Name is Petrunya (2019)
A decrepit old hotel behind a cafe is the home for an assembly of anonymous, regretful strangers in this surreal and weirdly mournful drama – a Japanese feature performed in Korean, and directed by Hideta Takahata. The early 2000s saw … Continue reading REVIEW: The Hotel Venus (2004)
The thing about ‘coming of age’ stories is that there are just so damn many of them, and they all seem too damned twee for their own good. Young people seem to be travelling to big cities all the time, … Continue reading REVIEW: My Salinger Year (2020)
Back in 1992 one of the most pivotal talents in the history of American cinema received a glowing tribute in Richard Attenborough’s earnest biographical picture Chaplin. The biopic has always been a popular genre of film, but it is often a … Continue reading REVIEW: Chaplin (1992)
