Reviewed by Lee Hill Christopher Ian Smith’s lyrical documentary looks at Basildon, one of 10 new towns approved and developed to provide innovative as well as affordable housing solutions after the Second World War. In September 1948 MP Lewis Silkin. Minister of Town and Country Planning in Prime Minister Clement Attlee’s government said: “Basildon will become a City which people from all over the world will want to visit. It…
Read MoreFilm Review: ANON
Reviewed by Zoe Margolis Shot in a monochromatic, desaturated style, ANON offers a dulled vision of a near-future where no one has any secrets, or privacy. Unlike now, where people voluntarily upload personal information to social media platforms (or involuntarily, as is the case with Cambridge Analytica’s exploitation of Facebook content), citizens of this society appear to have no choice as to how their data is accessed. Instead of mobile…
Read MoreLFF 2017: Redoubtable
One of the unofficial laws surrounding biopics is the more complex and rich the subject, the more reductive and superficial the treatment of the life. Redoubtable is ostensibly about a great cinema revolutionary, Jean-Luc Godard, but his life and art are alas interpreted by Michel Hazanavicius, a director who wears his slim talent for pastiche heavily. Hazanavicius is best known for The Artist, one of the least deserving Best Picture…
Read MoreFilm Review: Beast
Reviewed by Lee Hill Francois Truffaut will never be entirely forgiven by some of the country’s film buffs for saying that British cinema was a contradiction in terms. For every bold visionary like Michael Powell, Nicolas Roeg, Derek Jarman or Lynne Ramsay, there are countless directors whose plodding efficiency and middle brow choice of subject can make one long for the personal signature of a Richard Donner (yes, he did…
Read MoreFilm Review: The Ciambra
Reviewed by Lee Hill Against a timeless backdrop of mountain and foothills, a simply dressed yet elegant looking young man with a mustache tends to a horse and his encampment. This image will be a rare moment of calm and reflection before the chaotic narrative that follows. Where the opening shot of The Ciambra suggests timeless, romantic tradition, the remainder of the film will immerse us in a deracinated sub-culture…
Read MoreReview: Every Day
Reviewed by Linda Marric Michael Sucsy’s film about a teenage girl who falls in love with someone who transforms into someone else every day, is a charming, beautifully crafted and hugely engaging millennial love story with a twist. Based on David Levithan’s novel of the same name and from a screenplay by Jesse Andrews, Every Day offers a heart-warming tale of love, acceptance and teenage angst without ever falling into…
Read MoreFilm Review: Truth or Dare
Reviewed by Lee Hill Truth or Dare is such a bland, albeit efficient horror genre retread that its only conceivable raison d’etre is to keep risk averse mid-level studio executives employed. Entering a market that has been rejuvenated by the likes of Get Out, It Follows and A Quiet Place, this film deserves to get beaten to death at the box office and exiled to a remote corner of streaming…
Read MoreLFF 2017: Custody (Jusqu’à la Garde)
Reviewed by Lee Hill The bitterness of separation, divorce and the all too common legal battles between former spouses has made for familiar terrain at the movies. Shoot the Moon, Kramer Vs. Kramer, The War of the Roses, Blue Valentine and Boyhood are a few titles that spring to mind and of course, television drama would be crippled without domestic strife as convenient narrative fodder. Given the countless variations on…
Read MoreFilm Review: Ghost Stories
Reviewed by Tom Rowley BBC’s The League of Gentlemen was a hilarious pastiche of comedy stories that, at heart, had an endearing love for the hammer-horror genre. So it’s fitting that one of the show’s creators, Jeremy Dyson, has co-written and co-directed with Andy Nyman, a movie reminiscent of a Vincent Price platform, tying together horror vignettes throughout a mysterious overarching narrative. In his latest project, Ghost Stories, the horror-to-comedy ratio…
Read MoreFilm Review: I Kill Giants
Reviewed by Luke Channell An alluring strangeness fuels this debut feature from director Anders Walter which combines touching coming-of-age drama with eye-catching magical realism. Based on a graphic novel by Joe Kelly (who also adapts the screenplay), I Kill Giants follows the journey of high-schooler Barbara (Madison Wolfe) who envelops herself in a fantasy world to cope with her upsetting reality. While this premise is hardly thematically ground-breaking (comparisons with…
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