All articles by Dan Fainaru – Page 35
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Reviews
Dead In Three Days (In Drei Tagen Bist Du Tot)
Dir: Andreas Prochaska.Austria. 2006. 97mins.Teen audiences and midnight crowds looking for ahealthy dose of blood and guts will welcome DeadIn Three Days, Andreas Prochaska'sby-the-book slasher, which successfully follows therules and conventions of the genre.Set in smalltownrural Austria, it features the same group of friends, incompetent cops, redherrings and cocktail of ...
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Reviews
Das Fraulein
Dir: Andrea Staka. Sw-Ger-Bos-Cro-Serb. 2006. 81mins.Cross-cultural relationships and the immigrantexperience are given a new twist in Das Fraulein, AndreaStaka's debut feature, which examines three womenfrom the former Yugoslavia and how they deal with their past, their present andtheir future.Working from a script shewrote with Austrians Marie Kreuzer andwriter/director Barbara Albert ...
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Reviews
Nomad
Dirs: Ivan Passer/Sergei Bodrov/Talgat Temenov. Kazakh. 2006. 112mins.A sprawling spectacle that took its three directorsmore than three years to usher it to Locarno's PiazzaGrande, Nomad is a larger-than-lifehistorical epic replete with stunning landscapes and authentic productionvalues.While hardly afestival gem, it should still be something of a crowd pleaser among sympatheticaudiences ...
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Reviews
Serambi
Dirs: Garin Nugroho, Tonny Trimarsanto, Viva Westi,Lianto Luseno. Ind'sia-Fr. 2006. 75mins.Concentrating on the events after 2004's Asiantsunami disaster, the documentary Serambifunctions best as a companion piece to Garin Nugroho's previous work Of Love And Eggs, itself an ebullient pieceabout an Indonesian marketplace. Presenting through its collage of images thehuman and ...
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Reviews
Just Like The Son
Dir/scr: Morgan J Freeman. US. 2006. 86minsEssentially a road movie for kids, with the adultssimply straight men and women to a wisecrackingsix-years-old, Morgan J Freeman's Just LikeThe Son joins the plethora of undemanding matinee products targeted at thechildren's crowd.While its plot motor - adultkidnaps boy - hardly sounds ethical, audience ...
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Reviews
The Bubble (Ha'Bua)
Dir: Eytan Fox. Is. 2006. 90mins.Film-maker Eytan Foxdisappointingly follows Walk On Water, one of Israel's strongest exports of recenttimes, with The Bubble, asurprisingly feeble drama which picks up on similar themes but frames them indisorganised fashion.Set in Tel Aviv's Shenkin neighbourhood, the Israeli capital's equivalent ofGreenwich Village, the drama addresses ...
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Reviews
Sway (Yureru)
Dir: Miwa Nishikawa. Jap.2006. 119mins.Japanese film-maker Miwa Nishikawa may have beenmentored by acclaimed director's Hirokazu Kore-eda, but his latest feature, Sway, lacks the veteran's pacing and distinguished handling of drama.A supposed thriller thatuses a seemingly accidental death to deal with the malaise afflicting aJapanese family, and through it Japanese society, ...
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Reviews
The Destiny (El Destino)
Dir: Miguel Pereira. Arg-Sp. 2006. 102mins.An allegory about the rape of Latin America throughforeign intrusion, Destiny has justthe kind of political message that will appeal to liberal festival and arthouse audiences. The addition of spectacular landscapesand generous splashes of local colour should help usher it to events around theworld.But while ...
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Reviews
Reprise
Dir: Joachim Trier. Nor. 2006. 105mins.First-time director Joachim Trier makes a bright, frenetic and agile debut with Reprise, the story of two would-be Norwegiannovelists in their early twenties, trying to make it in the worlds of bothliterature and adulthood.The picture's main qualityis the immediacy of performances from a mostly non-professional ...
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Reviews
Winter Journey (Winterreise)
Dir: Hans Steinbichler.Ger. 2006. 95mins.Diving into the depths of manic-depressive gloom withFranz Schubert's heartbreaking song cycle Winterreise as company is a toughassignment - while Hans Steinbichler's Winter Journey falls short, it does atleast rate some recognition for its courage.Following a sixtysomething businessman driven to bankruptcy as he losescontrol over his ...
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Reviews
The Way I Spent The End Of The World (Cum mi-am petrecut sfarsitul lumii)
Dir: Catalin Mitulescu. Rom-Fr. 2006. 106mins.More like a quick guide to recent history rather thana fully rounded first feature, Catalin Mitulescu's debut TheWay I Spent The End Of The Worldpaints a disturbing realistic, if often disorganised,portrait of Romanian life during 1989, the last year of the Ceausescu era.Blending childhood pranksand ...
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Reviews
The Way I Spent The End Of The World (Cum mi-am petrecut sfarsitul lumii)
Dir: Catalin Mitulescu. Rom-Fr. 2006. 106mins.More like a quick guide to recent history rather thana fully rounded first feature, Catalin Mitulescu's debut TheWay I Spent The End Of The Worldpaints a disturbing realistic, if often disorganised,portrait of Romanian life during 1989, the last year of the Ceausescu era.Blending childhood pranksand ...
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Reviews
Beauty In Trouble (Kraska v Nesnazich)
Dir: Jan Hrebejk. Czech Rep. 2006. 110mins.Film-maker Jan Hrebejkreturns with Beauty In Trouble,another chronicle about the morality of his Czech compatriots as they crossfrom the vestiges of their recent totalitarian past to the best of the West.Inspired by a Robert Graves poem about a beauty saved by an angelic presence, ...
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Reviews
Time (Shi Gan)
Dir/scr: Kim Ki-duk. S Kor. 2006. 96minsA Kim Ki-duk film is never less than intriguing, and Time, his new feature, is no exception. His treatment of an increasingly fashionable theme, the popular use of plastic surgery to outsmart nature and relieve emotional insecurities, is in itself enough to draw attention. ...
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Reviews
Luxury Car
Dir/scr: Wang Chao. Chi-Fr. 2006. 88minsIf Luxury Car,Wang Chao's old-fashioned Franco-Chinese melodramaabout a man looking for his son in the big city, turns out so much better thanits contents seem to promise, then it is mostly due to the gently restrainedtreatment it receives from its writer/director and a remarkable cast ...
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Reviews
12:08, East Of Bucharest (A Fost Sau N'a Fost)
Dir/scr: CorneliuPorumboiu. Rom. 2006. 89minsLittle more than a vignette, but nevertheless asuccinctly astute one at that, Corneliu Porumboiu's 12:08, East Of Bucharest is a spare, low-budget production whichhits the nail right on the head in its depiction of Romania just before thefall of the Ceausescu dictatorship. At the same time, ...
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Reviews
The Violin
Mexico. 2006. 98 mins. Director Francisco VargasQuevedoDirector Francisco Vargas Quevedo's film was upgradedfrom last year's Cinefondation at Cannes to a slot in the 2006 Un CertainRegard, but his theme, now fleshed out to full feature length, was kickedupstairs as well. The short version of The Violin contained most of the ...
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Reviews
Buenos Aires 1977
Dir:Israel Adrian Caetano,Argentina. 2006. 102minsBased on a true story set in 1970s Argentina,Israel Adrian Caetano’s Bueno Aires 1977(Cronaca De Una Fuga) is a familiar story of a prison break-out told infamiliar terms.Snapped up at Cannes by TheWeinstein Company for the US, whereit opens in January 2007, and Australasia, the film ...
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Reviews
Selon Charlie
Tomake another Short Cuts without the spirit of Raymond Carver and the touch of Robert Altman isjust too much of a challenge for this darkly handsome but overlong,melodramatic and ultimately tedious Cannes competition effort, which pretendsto discuss the mystery of human nature, using an anonymous provincial town onthe Atlantic coast ...
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Reviews
La Tourneuse De Pages
Dir: Denis Dercourt. Fr. 2006. 83mins.While it tries to wedge itself inbetween the caustic social commentary of Claude Chabroland Michael Haneke's notion of past guilt hauntingthe Western bourgeoisie, Denis Dercourt'spsychological thriller La Tourneuse De Pages sadly has neither the wit nor thedepth to play in such a lofty league.Dercourt takes ...