The Woman In The Fifth (15)
(Pawel Pawlikowski, 2011, Fra/Pol/UK) Ethan Hawke, Kristin Scott Thomas, Joanna Kulig. 84 mins.
Mysteries abound in this sombre, 1970s-style drama, and so do women. Hawke's emotionally wracked American in Paris is plagued by them – not just the seductress of the title (Scott Thomas) but also his estranged wife and daughter, and the pretty Polish waitress. Plus some dodgy (male) gangster types. If it all seems too good to be true, it is, but this doesn't show its hand till very late on – maybe too late – and maybe too many cards, or too few.
Hadewijch (12A)
(Bruno Dumont, 2009, Fra) Julie Sokolowski, Yassine Salime, Karl Sarafidis. 105 mins.
Boldly drawing connections between (Christian) religious devotion and (Muslim) religious extremism, this radical but naturalistic drama follows a rejected nun whose search for spiritual solace takes her far out of her central Paris comfort zone, and deep into the paradoxes of faith.
(Pawel Pawlikowski, 2011, Fra/Pol/UK) Ethan Hawke, Kristin Scott Thomas, Joanna Kulig. 84 mins.
Mysteries abound in this sombre, 1970s-style drama, and so do women. Hawke's emotionally wracked American in Paris is plagued by them – not just the seductress of the title (Scott Thomas) but also his estranged wife and daughter, and the pretty Polish waitress. Plus some dodgy (male) gangster types. If it all seems too good to be true, it is, but this doesn't show its hand till very late on – maybe too late – and maybe too many cards, or too few.
Hadewijch (12A)
(Bruno Dumont, 2009, Fra) Julie Sokolowski, Yassine Salime, Karl Sarafidis. 105 mins.
Boldly drawing connections between (Christian) religious devotion and (Muslim) religious extremism, this radical but naturalistic drama follows a rejected nun whose search for spiritual solace takes her far out of her central Paris comfort zone, and deep into the paradoxes of faith.
- 2/18/2012
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
Bruno Dumont is back on form with this mysterious and unsettling film about a fiercely devout twentysomething
The disturbing, violent, neo-Bressonian work of the French film-maker Bruno Dumont has waxed and waned in potency over the years: his Life of Jesus (1997) and the bizarrely compelling Humanity (1999) established his vision. There is a social-realist aesthetic, and a stark, islanded beauty and bleakness in the areas of northern France where Dumont prefers to film; there is an enigmatic mysticism amid explicit brutality, and a distinctive use of non-professional actors encouraged to maintain an unsmiling blankness and transcendental ordinariness. (To the astonishment of some, Emmanuel Schotté won the best actor prize at Cannes for a deadpan, untutored, almost childlike performance as the troubled police officer in Humanity, his single screen credit to this day. He was certainly an eerily powerful presence.)
Dumont has begun to repeat himself lately, but Hadewijch, made three years...
The disturbing, violent, neo-Bressonian work of the French film-maker Bruno Dumont has waxed and waned in potency over the years: his Life of Jesus (1997) and the bizarrely compelling Humanity (1999) established his vision. There is a social-realist aesthetic, and a stark, islanded beauty and bleakness in the areas of northern France where Dumont prefers to film; there is an enigmatic mysticism amid explicit brutality, and a distinctive use of non-professional actors encouraged to maintain an unsmiling blankness and transcendental ordinariness. (To the astonishment of some, Emmanuel Schotté won the best actor prize at Cannes for a deadpan, untutored, almost childlike performance as the troubled police officer in Humanity, his single screen credit to this day. He was certainly an eerily powerful presence.)
Dumont has begun to repeat himself lately, but Hadewijch, made three years...
- 2/17/2012
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
If one contemplates the history of political cinema, it would appear that the greatest political films were made when a discursive framework – usually Marxist or liberal-democratic – was readily available. Rarely have political films not assumed ‘complete understanding’ of a political subject and this understanding has been provided by accepted ideological viewpoints. Instead of being tentative in their approach to their subjects, political films have been categorical – because of their confidence in their moral/ political positions. To illustrate, the anti-colonialism of Gilo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers (1966) which is post-Marxist and perhaps owes to Frantz Fanon, could not have been opposed. Costa Gavras’ Z (1969), which is set in an unnamed country (perhaps Greece) under a military junta, is confident of the universality of liberal-democratic values. Political films made after the end of Communism, works like The Lives of Others (2006), plead for freedom from tyranny and uphold similar liberal-democratic values which,...
- 3/8/2011
- by MK Raghvendra
- DearCinema.com
Chicago – We have now reached the fourth and final week of the 13th Annual European Union Film Festival at the Siskel Film Center, and what a fantastic festival it has been. From international sensations to critically acclaimed gems rarely available in the Us, the EU annual line-up is consistently one of the finest offered by any festival in the Windy City.
The first three weeks were loaded with highlights that just seemed to get better as the days progressed. Some of the selections, such as Austria’s diabolical delight “The Bone Man” and the Netherlands’ beguiling documentary “Rembrandt’s J’Accuse,” were more entertaining than the majority of mainstream Hollywood releases. Both France and Italy had several exceptional entries this year, including Amos Gitai’s spellbinding “Disengagement” and Luca Guadagnino’s ravishing “I Am Love.” Read more here, here and here.
The final week is somewhat of a letdown in comparison,...
The first three weeks were loaded with highlights that just seemed to get better as the days progressed. Some of the selections, such as Austria’s diabolical delight “The Bone Man” and the Netherlands’ beguiling documentary “Rembrandt’s J’Accuse,” were more entertaining than the majority of mainstream Hollywood releases. Both France and Italy had several exceptional entries this year, including Amos Gitai’s spellbinding “Disengagement” and Luca Guadagnino’s ravishing “I Am Love.” Read more here, here and here.
The final week is somewhat of a letdown in comparison,...
- 3/25/2010
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
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