All articles by Sheila Johnston – Page 2
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Reviews
Common Places (Lugares Communes)
Dir: Adolfo Aristarain. Arg-Sp. 2002. 113mins.A graceful, intelligent and humorous portrait of a sixty-something couple forced to rebuild their lives, Common Places (Lugares Communes) confirms the director-actor team of Adolfo Aristarain and Federico Luppi as San Sebastian favourites. Very warmly received at the festival, the film, which opened in Argentina ...
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Reviews
Mondays In The Sun (Los Lunes Al Sol)
Dir: Fernando Leon de Aranoa. Sp-Fr-It. 2002. 113mins.A bittersweet comedy about men facing unemployment led by a barnstorming central performance from Javier Bardem, Mondays In The Sun (Los Lunes Al Sol) looks like another decisive critical and popular hit for one of Spain's most hotly tipped new young talents. Fernando ...
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Reviews
Suddenly (Tan De Repente)
Dir: Diego Lerman. Argentina. 2002. 94 mins. Further proof of the astonishing range and vigour of the current Argentine cinema is offered by Suddenly (Tan De Repente), a captivating, simple yet subtle road movie about a lonely shop girl whose world is transformed when she is abducted by two punk ...
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Reviews
The Idol (L'Idol)
Dir: Samantha Lang. France. 2002. 110mins.A great leap of faith is required to adore The Idol, an overwrought chamber piece about the ambiguous, erotically charged relationship between two expatriates living in Paris. Premiered at Locarno's vast Piazza Grande but much better suited to an intimate art-house setting, this French-language drama ...
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Reviews
Possession
Dir: Neil LaBute. US. 2002. 103 mins. An extraordinary choice of director lies at the heart of Possession, a story of rapturous Victorian romance told by a film-maker, Neil LaBute, best known for his razor-tongued and cynical comedies about contemporary American sexual mores. Critical response will depend on whether his ...
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Reviews
Okay
OKAYReviewed by Sheila Johnston in LocarnoScreened in competitionDir: Jesper W Nielsen. Denmark. 2002. 95mins. Danish actors must be the envy of their colleagues the world over: this tiny national industry produces an endless stream of films which treat very recognisable, everyday problems with that distinctive Nordic blend of comedy and ...
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Reviews
The Longing
THE LONGING (DAS VERLANGEN)Reviewed by Sheila Johnston in LocarnoScreened in competitionDir: Iain Dilthey. Germany. 2002. 90mins.The winner of this year's Golden Leopard in Locarno, The Longing (Das Verlangen), a low-budget film school graduate work by the Scottish-born, German-bred director Iain Dilthey, presents a redoubtable marketing challenge. With its sombre subject ...
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Reviews
Cinemania
Dirs: Angela Christlieb, Stephen Kijak. Germany. 2002. 80mins. Cinema is "better than sex - better than love," enthuses Bill at the beginning of Cinemania, a funny and affectionate chronicle of five film-crazy New Yorkers and the astonishing lengths to which they will go to feed their obsession. A perfect crowd-pleaser ...
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Reviews
Revengers Tragedy
Dir: Alex Cox. UK. 2002. 112mins.UK film-maker Alex Cox first came across Thomas Middleton's Jacobean revenge tragedy as a student in 1976, when he was intrigued by its very modern blend of morbid comedy and ultra-violence. His long-planned screen version is steeped in a 1970s anarcho-punk sensibility, with Derek Jarman ...
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Reviews
Devdas
Dir: Sanjay Leela Bhansali. India. 2002. 181minsDevdas is a bloated banquet with minimal nutrition for the grey cells, but a few spicy morsels to tease the taste buds along the way. Expectations are riding high for the $10 million production, which opens worldwide with around 1,000 prints today (July 12) ...
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Reviews
Madame Sata
Dir: Karim Ainouz. Brazil/France. 2002. 103mins. There's a wonderful film to be made about Joao Francisco Dos Santos, otherwise known as Madame Sata, a rugged homosexual, six-foot-tall and weighing 170 pounds, who lived as a street fighter, singer, transvestite and devoted father to seven adopted children in the bohemian quarter ...
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Reviews
Bridget
Dir: Amos Kollek. Fr-US. 2001. 90mins.Amos Kollek is one of the great wonders of the film festival world. Each new film seems virtually guaranteed of a slot on the A-list (the last two, Queenie In Love and Fast Food, Fast Women, both premiered in Cannes), yet none has broken though ...
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Reviews
The Abduction Club
Dir: Stefan Schwartz. Ire-UK. 2001. 96mins. Based on an amusing plot premise - "the 18th century's answer to Dateline" - The Abduction Club avoids the music-vid gimmickry of previous attempts to bring the costume romp to the youth market such as Jake Scott's Plunkett And Macleane. The gentle tone of ...
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Reviews
Apartment 5C
Dir: Raphael Nadjari. US/Fr/Israel. 2002. 93 mins. Two qualities distinguish this grungy, ultra-low-budget New York production: John Surman's gorgeously moody saxophone jazz score and the fact that the film, set during last year's cold, grey Thanksgiving celebrations, was apparently one of the first shot to be in the city after ...
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Reviews
And Now... Ladies And Gentlemen
Dir: Claude Lelouch. France. 2002. 135 mins. His Palme D'Or in 1966 for A Man And A Woman notwithstanding, Claude Lelouch has never been a critics' favourite and his latest offering, unveiled to the press in Cannes to sniggers and walk-outs, was no exception. And indeed even the director's fans ...
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Reviews
Japon
Dir: Carlos Reygadas. Mexico-Spain. 2002. 122 mins. Carlos Reygadas's visionary and impressive feature debut announces the director as an exciting new talent. It is also highly uncompromising: Reygadas states that he's interested in film as a way of creating sensations rather than of making a statement or telling a story, ...
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Reviews
Searching For Debra Winger (Hladanie)
Dir: Rosanna Arquette. US. 2001. 97mins. Special ScreeningBilled as a "Rosanna Arquette Experience", this documentary portrait of the pressures faced by actresses in the film business is modestly described by its first-time director as "like a home movie. Very simple'. She's right: with its from-the-hip camerawork, some shot by Arquette ...
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Reviews
Ten Minutes Older - The Trumpet
Dirs: Werner Herzog, Jim Jarmusch, Chen Kaige, Aki Kaurismaki, Spike Lee, Victor Erice, Wim Wenders. 2002. 92 mins. There are enormous advantages to the short-film format. It allows directors a creative freedom rarely enjoyed these days by even the most bankable names. For the audience, it offers a chance to ...
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Reviews
Irreversible
Dir: Gaspar Noe. France. 2002. 95mins. Flagged from the beginning of the festival as Cannes' 'succes de scandal', with a huge commotion in the French media and an official warning printed on its tickets, Irreversible emerges as neither successful nor, come to that, especially scandalous. A significant backward step for ...