Tag: french film
Goodbye, First Love
Saturday, March 31st, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,Goodbye First Love is one of those films that will polarise its audience in terms of personality. If you are a type A Alpha male, you will most probably find this tale of young love and lost innocence to be unbearably slow and insipid. If you are the sensitive type B, you may be charmed […]
French Film Festival
Saturday, March 10th, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,Last year 130,000 people attended the Alliance Francaise French Film Festival, making it by far the most popular of all the international film events held annually in this country. To be fair, it is also the biggest. This year’s program features no fewer than 45 features, plus the usual round of celebrity visits and other […]
The Artist
Saturday, February 18th, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,Never have I felt more in tune with Bill Collins’s encomiums on the golden days of Hollywood than after seeing The Artist. In the week leading up to the Oscars one could say it’s been a pretty good year, but if there is one film that reminds us of just of why we go to […]
New Year’s Eve & The Women on the 6th Floor
Wednesday, December 28th, 2011 Film Reviews,A ‘star vehicle’ is a film in which the script and story are less important than the presence of a fashionable actor. As a vehicle, New Year’s Eve might be compared to a bus with no brakes, hauling a whole gaggle of celebrities towards a cliff. One expects these ‘feelgood’ films to feel bad, but […]
The Illusionist
Friday, August 26th, 2011 Film Reviews,Jacques Tati, the legendary French comic, has always been a paradox. Many people find the antics of his famous creation, Monsieur Hulot, to be side-splittingly funny, but there are others, such as Yours Truly, who have never warmed to Tati’s brand of humour. The typical Tati gag will have M. Hulot opening and closing a […]
Special Treatment
Thursday, July 21st, 2011 Film Reviews, Other Writing,This may not be the first time that anyone has recognised a peculiar affinity between psychoanalysis and prostitution, but Jeanne Labrune’s Special Treatment, explores that echo with impressive subtlety. This is a quiet, evenly-paced film that looks initially as if it might be a comedy, but soon settles into a dramatic pattern that takes us […]
Mozart’s Sister
Friday, July 15th, 2011 Film Reviews,After sitting through Sofia Coppola’s disastrous Marie Antoinette many viewers might feel they never want to see another periwig. The French, however, are addicted to these costume dramas which hark back to days of imperial glory and quicksilver repartée. Add a little Baroque music and the recipe is irresistible. So when a French film called […]
Little White Lies
Friday, June 24th, 2011 Film Reviews,From the first frame we are plunged into the loud, lurid bacchanalia of a Parisian nightclub. Ludo (Jean Dujardin) is stumbling across the floor, smashed on booze and coke. Finally, he decides to call it a night. Out the door, onto his motorbike, puttering away down the long, lonely avenues of early morning. We watch […]