Film Reviews
The Other Side of Hope & Paul: Apostle of Christ
Friday, April 6th, 2018 Film Reviews,In pre-Enlightenment days ‘history’ was a mass of tall stories, myths and rumours. Authors were happy to recount tales of miracles and supernatural events, readers were happy to believe them. In the mid-1800s it was still scandalous when writers such as David Strauss and Ernst Renan began to challenge the historical basis of the Bible, […]
The Death of Stalin
Friday, March 30th, 2018 Film Reviews,It’s conservatively estimated that 20 million people were murdered during Joseph Stalin’s reign.“So why were they all killed?” asks Simon Sebag Montefiore, in his devastating book, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. Nadezhda Mandelstam, who lost her poet husband, Osip, gave a succinct answer: “for nothing”. Montefiore suggests that under Stalin the supreme offence […]
Mary Magdalene
Friday, March 23rd, 2018 Film Reviews,Of all the figures in the New Testament, Mary Magdalene has been the most misunderstood. This is partly because early commentators found it hard to distinguish between Mary of Magdala, Mary of Bethany, and the ‘sinful’ woman in the Gospel of St. Luke, who anoints Jesus’s feet in Simon’s house and dries them with her […]
Human Flow
Friday, March 16th, 2018 Film Reviews,Human Flow is a relentless film about a relentless problem. There have always been refugees – people displaced from their homes by war, persecution or natural disaster – but we are living through an era when this activity has accelerated in many different parts of the world. Ai Weiwei takes us on a global tour […]
The Square
Friday, March 9th, 2018 Film Reviews,As another Sydney Biennale looms one wonders why there aren’t more satires on contemporary art. The reason perhaps, is that reality routinely exceeds the wildest imaginings of the satirist. The beauty of Ruben Östlund’s The Square, which won the Palme d’Or in Cannes last year, lies in its understatement. It presents one bizarre scenario after […]
A Fantastic Woman
Friday, March 2nd, 2018 Film Reviews,Imagine being born on the wrong side of the gender divide, living as a woman in a man’s body or vice versa. We’ve come to view so-called ‘identity politics’ as social theatre but for every transgendered person who strikes a militant pose there must be hundreds who simply crave normality. Marina, the protagonist in Sebastián […]
Alliance Française French Film Festival 2018
Friday, February 23rd, 2018 Film Reviews,Every year at the opening of the Alliance Française French Film Festival we gasp with excitement at the news that this is the biggest festival of French films in the world, outside of France. Unless we think of Cannes as a “French Film Festival” this probably means it’s the biggest in the world. Australia’s love […]
Lady Bird
Friday, February 16th, 2018 Film Reviews,It’s long been apparent that Woody Allen’s best films are those in which he doesn’t make an appearance. One day we may be applying the same standard to Greta Gerwig. Her ‘goofy girl’ routine still had its charm in Frances Ha (2012) but by the time of Mistress America, only three years later, it was […]
Happy End
Saturday, February 10th, 2018 Film Reviews,When Michael Haneke calls a film Happy End, one anticipates a thoroughly miserable experience for everyone concerned. Forewarned is forearmed. If you go into this movie expecting a withering indictment of the cold-hearted French bourgeoisie you might even squeeze out a snicker or two at the sheer awfulness of the dramatis personae. It’s to be […]
I, Tonya
Friday, February 2nd, 2018 Film Reviews,Tonya Harding, my star Well this world is a cold one But it takes one to know one And God only knows what you are Sufjan Stevens claims to have spent 25 years trying to write a song about Tonya Harding. In the ballad that finally appeared late last year he still can’t seem to […]