Tag: France
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REVIEW: Anatomy of a Fall (Belfast Film Festival)
(spoiler free) Winning the prestigious Palme d’Or at Cannes can be both a blessing and a curse. Of course, it immediately raises the profile of the recipient, but it also dramatically increases audience expectation. Over the coming weeks and months of the festival circuit, living up to the hype generated from receiving this prize can…
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REVIEW: Return to Seoul
(spoiler free) There’s a lot to like about Davy Chou’s Return to Seoul, most notably Park Ji-min’s debut performance as Frédérique “Freddie” Benoit, who visits South Korea to meet her biological parents. Freddie was adopted from a French family and does not speak Korean, thinking her life is in France as her Korean family abandoned…
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REVIEW: Close
(spoiler free) Friendship can be tough, but for the inseparable Rémi (Gustav de Waele) and Léo (Eden Dambrine) it seems like the most effortless thing in the world. After spending an idyllic summer in each other’s unceasing company, the boys must embark on the next stage of their education as they start high school together.…
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REVIEW: La Haine
(spoiler free) So far, so good. So far, so good. Mathieu Kassovitz’s furious, powerhouse La Haine is now in its 25th year. Wowing, challenging and punching audiences in the face since its premiere at Cannes, where it won best director for Kassovitz and introduced leading man Vincent Cassel to the wider world. Like the classics…
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REVIEW: Portrait of a Lady on Fire
(spoiler free) Palm D’or nominee and Queer Palm winner Portrait of a Lady on Fire is slow burning and profoundly intimate. Written and directed by Céline Sciamma, the film follows Marianne, a painter commissioned to create the wedding portrait of a young woman on a small French island at the end of 18th century. Throughout…
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At Eternity’s Gate
(spoiler free) With the paint barely dry from the exquisite ‘Loving Vincent’ that audiences were treated to only a couple of years ago we’ve arrived at the release of new Vincent van Gogh biopic, ‘At Eternity’s Gate’. Starring Willem Dafoe as the famous painter, and earning him a Best Actor nomination at the Academy Awards,…
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Paris Is Us
(spoiler free) Beginning as a Kickstarter project before being picked up by Netflix; ‘Paris is Us’ is a tale of love and loss in the French capital but is there plenty to amour or will it be something to sauter (skip)? Cafe worker Anna (Noemie Schmidt) meets Greg (Gregoire Isvarine) at a nightclub and they…
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Colette
(spoiler free) In his first film since ‘Still Alice’, the film in which Julianne Moore earned her much overdue Leading Actress Oscar, Wash Westmoreland tells the story of French writer Gabrielle Colette. Keira Knightly stars in the leading role alongside Dominic West who portrays her husband, Henry Gauthier-Villars, more commonly referred to as “Willy”. ‘Colette’…
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Climax
(spoiler free) Twenty hip hop and urban dancers assembled in an abandoned school rehearsing a group performance doesn’t sound like a very good premise for a movie. However, this isn’t any ordinary rehearsal with things quickly descending into utter anarchy. Starring Sofia Boutella amongst a whole host of other wildly talented performers ‘Climax’ is the…
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Jeune Femme
(spoiler free) Before ‘Jeune Femme’ begins, Paula Simonean (Laetitia Dosch) was a different woman to who we meet. She lived as a muse/subject for a famous photographer Joachim (Grégoire Monsaingeon), and in this ten year relationship she learned nothing. Now she regrets having nothing of her own. We meet Paula when she’s alone and abandoned;…
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