All articles by Derek Malcolm
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News
Taking a critical angle
Evaluating Cannes' wealth of films is an exhilarating - and exhausting - experience for critics. Long may it continue, says Derek Malcolm. Time was when you could walk down the Croisette at Cannes, spy a famous director sipping his coffee and sit down and chat without interference. Now you have ...
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Reviews
9 Songs
Dir: MichaelWinterbottom. UK. 2004. 65minsAlthough scarcely inmid-career, Michael Winterbottom has attempted almost every available filmgenre in which to test his considerable talents. 9 Songs, filmeddigitally, like his 2003 Berlin Golden Bear winner In This World, is hisbest shot at a film about sex.You could almost call it aporn movie - ...
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Reviews
Arimpara
Dir: Murali Nair. India-Jap. 2003. 90minsDirector Murali Nair's Throne Of Death and A Dog's Day were feted at Cannes, the former with the coveted Camera d'Or for best first feature. But Arimpara, which screened in Un Certain Regard, has not gone down so well, and it certainly has its problems. ...
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News
Obituary: Alexander Walker
Alexander Walker, one of the UK's best-known, longest-lasting and most highly-paid and influential film critics, died suddenly yesterday at the London Clinic. He was 73 and had been undergoing tests for cancer.Walker, born in Portadown, Northern Ireland and educated at Queens University, Belfast, was critic of the London Evening Standard ...
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News
Berlinale awash with Talent
Festival directors know only too well that luck as well as judgement determines the strength or weakness of their competition programmes. The state of world cinema may vary enormously year by year - Cannes head Gilles Jacob has even admitted in the past that his programme has merely been the ...
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News
Berlinale awash with Talent
Festival directors know only too well that luck as well as judgement determines the strength or weakness of their competition programmes. The state of world cinema may vary enormously year by year - Cannes head Gilles Jacob has even admitted in the past that his programme has merely been the ...
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Reviews
Hush
Dir: Ryosuke Hashiguchi. Japan. 2001. 135 mins. Hashiguchi's directorial debut, Like Grains of Sand, won prizes at Rotterdam, Dunkirk and the Turin Gay And Lesbian Festival. But it is less easy to see Hush!, his second feature, achieving the same welcome and having the same impact even on the arthouse ...
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Reviews
Desert Moon
Dir:Shinji Aoyama. Japan.2001.131mins After winning the International Critics Award at Cannes last year for his remarkable Eureka, a lot was expected of Shinji Aoyama, a young director who clearly has it in him to make waves outside his home country. Perhaps too much, since Desert Moon strives too hard to ...
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Reviews
Taurus
Dir: Alexander Sokurov. Russia. 2001.90 mins. Alexander Sokurov's examination of fallible tyranny continues. After Moloch, in which Hitler and Eva Braun conducted what was often a non-relationship at Berchtesgarden, comes Taurus, in which Lenin, crippled by a stroke, negotiates a living death in a requisitioned mansion surrounded by strangers no ...
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Reviews
Fat Girl (A Ma Soeur!)
Screened at Berlin (Competition). Dir: Catherine Breillat. France-Italy. 2001mins. No European director, and certainly no female European film-maker, has made a more audacious series of films than Catherine Breillat. There are times, in fact, when she seems to court controversy. In this respect, Fat Girl carries on where Romance left ...
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Reviews
The Tailor Of Panama
Brosnan too suave by halfThe Tailor Of PanamaDerek Malcolm in BerlinScreened at Berlin (Panorama). Dir: John Boorman. US-Ireland. 2001. 111mins.Rumours that the ending of The Tailor Of Panama was changed so that Pierce Brosnan's spy doesn't get killed but flies off instead towards a prosperous future hints at what is ...
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Reviews
Disco Pigs
Screened at Berlin(Panorama). Dir: Kirsten Sheridan. Ireland-UK. 2001. 94mins.First films invested with passion are not rare, but those supported by the skill to go with it are few and far between. Disco Pigs, Kirsten Sheridan's debut feature from Ireland, has moments which herald the emergence of a real film-maker of ...
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Reviews
Pathos
Dir: Jayaraaj. India. 2000. 77mins.Prod co/Int'l sales: Harvest Films, (tel: 0091 44 600034). Prod: Jayaraaj. Scr: Madambu. DoP: M.J.Radhakrishan. Ed: Sreekar Prasad. Music: Sunny Stephen. Leading players: Vavchan, Eliyamma, Biju Menon.Emigrants from the underdeveloped world invariably try to send money home to their less fortunate families. That is specially true ...
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Reviews
Platform
Dir: Jia Zhang-ke. Hong Kong-Japan-France. 2000. 192mins.Prod co: Hu Tong Communications (HK). Int'l sales: Flach Pyramide International, tel: (33) 1 42 96 02 20. Prods: Li Kit-ming, Shozo Ichiyama. Scr: Jia Zhang-ke. DoP: Yu Lik-wai. Ed: Kong jing-lei. Prod des: Qui Sheng. Music: Joshihiro Hanno. Main cast: Wang Hong-wei, Zhao ...
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Reviews
Deveeri
Dir: Kavitha Lankesh. India. 1999. 100 mins.Prod co/Int'l sales: Navajeevana Films (tel: 0091 80 560004). Prod: Kavitha Lankesh, Bharathi Gowda, Arathi Gadasali, Hanumanth Reddy. Scr: Kavitha Lankesh. DoP: S. Ramachandra. Editor: MN Swamy. Prod des: Shashidar Adapa. Main cast: Manja, Kandita Das, Bhavana, Kashi, B. Jaishree, Asif Faroodi. Language: Kannada.Deveeri ...
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Reviews
Virgin Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors
Dir: Hong Sang-Soo. South Korea. 2000. 127 mins.Prod co: Miracin Korea. Int'l sales: Mirovision. Exec Prod: Hong Sang-Soo. Prod: Lee Yu-jin. Scr: Hong Sang-soo. DoP: Choi Young-taek. Ed: Ham Sung-won. Music: Ok Gil-sung. Main cast: Lee Fun-joo, Jung Bo-suk, Moon Sung-keun.South Korea's thirtysomethings are much like Hollywood's, who talk endlessly ...
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Reviews
Purely Belter
Dir: Mark Herman. UK. 2000. 97 mins.Prod cos: Elizabeth Karlsen, Mumbo Jumbo, London. Int'l Sales: FilmFour International. Scr: Mark Herman from The Season Ticket by Joanthan Tulloch. DoP: Andy Collins. Prod design: Don Taylor. Ed: Michael Ellis. Music: Ian Broudie, Michael Gibbs. Main cast: Chris Beattie, Greg McLane, Charlie Hardwick, ...
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Reviews
Eureka
Dir: Shinji Aoyama. Japan. 2000. 218mins.Prod cos: A.J.Works, Les Films de l'Observatoire, Tokyo Theatres. Int'l sales: Wild Bunch, tel: (+33 1 4443 9800). Prod: Takenori Sento. Scr: Shinji Aoyama. Ed: Shinji Aoyama. Prod des:Takeshi Shimizu. DoP: Masaki Tamra. Music: Isao Yamada. Main cast: Kaji Yakusho, Aoi Miyazaki, Masaru Miyazaki, Go ...
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Reviews
A One And A Two (Yi Yi)
Dir: Edward Yang. Taiwan-Japan. 2000. 174 mins.Prod cos: Atom Films (Taiwan), Pony Canyon Inc (Japan). Int'l sales: Capitol Films, tel: (44) 20 7471 6000. Prods: Kaway Shinya, Tsukedea Naoko. Scr: Edward Yang. DoP: Yang Weihan. Prod des: Kaili Peng. Music: Kaili Peng. Ed:Chen Bowen. Main cast: Wu Nainzhen, Kelly Lee, ...