EIFF 2012: Here, Then
By . Published 04 July 2012
In a rural Chinese town a young couple sit silently facing each other. It is a good few minutes before sparse words are spoken. The frigid atmosphere is overwhelming as an agonisingly slow...
Film > Reviews
EIFF 2012: California Solo
By . Published 04 July 2012A powerful, despair-laced central performance from Robert Carlyle elevates Marshall Lewy’s at times ponderous look at an alcoholic former rocker attempting to banish his demons, who takes stock under the...
EIFF 2012: Unconditional
By . Published 03 July 2012A rare beast: a British film that tackles a challenging subject with confidence and nous, identifying major talent behind and in front of the camera.
Your Sister's Sister
By . Published 29 June 2012Mumblecore king Mark Duplass (think of a smug, male Greta Gerwig) plays Jack, a 30-something slacker who’s struggling to get over the death of his brother, who died a year...
EIFF 2012: The Search for Emak Bakia
By . Published 29 June 2012Taking Man Ray’s inscrutable cine-poem Emak-Bakia (1927) as inspiration, The Search for Emak Bakia sees director Oskar Alegria walk the Basque coast with chance as his compass, following in the...
EIFF 2012: Eddie: The Sleepwalking Cannibal
By . Published 29 June 2012While we don’t know for sure how Eddie: The Sleepwalking Cannibal was pitched to investors, we’d like to think it was something along the lines of: "Rain Man, except Tom...
EIFF 2012: Brake
By . Published 29 June 2012A mildly impressive joyride, but some staggeringly stupid twists put on the brakes
EIFF 2012: God Bless America
By . Published 29 June 2012Bobcat Goldthwait, one of USA's most adventurous directors, is back with a biting satire on American culture
The Battle of Algiers
By . Published 28 June 2012Cinema so often instructs us what to think. Lighting, score, even camera angles push buttons in our minds, clearly identifying friend and foe. Then we have The Battle of Algiers....
21 Jump Street
By . Published 27 June 2012I had a dream. Not the usual one where I'm sent back to school with – for an unexplained but apparently plausible reason – no clothes on. No, this one...
EIFF 2012: The Ambassador
By . Published 25 June 2012It sounds like the start of a bad joke: how does a “caucasian, pigment-challenged” Dane become Liberia’s diplomatic representative in the Central African Republic? According to Mads Brügger’s The Ambassador,...
EIFF 2012: The Lifeguard
By . Published 25 June 2012A documentary that's as precisely plotted as any fiction
EIFF 2012: Sun Don't Shine
By . Published 25 June 2012Amy Seimetz's delightfully oblique road-movie neatly sidesteps any potential fears of yet another generic lo-fi couple-with-issues indie. Crystal (Kate Lyn Sheil) and boyfriend Leo (Kentucker Audley) are travelling (escaping?) to...
EIFF 2012: Isn't Anyone Alive? (Ikiteru mono inai no ka)
By . Published 24 June 2012Who'd have thought the world coming to an end would be so much fun?...
EIFF 2012: Dr Seuss' The Lorax
By . Published 24 June 2012The Lorax continues the trend of poor cinematic adaptations of Dr Seuss
EIFF 2012: 7 Days in Havana
By . Published 24 June 2012Portmanteau 7 Days in Havana is significantly less than the sum of its talented parts
EIFF 2012: Exit Elena
By . Published 23 June 2012This highly accomplished, micro-budget drama from Nathan Silver offers a rich study of loneliness and its different effects. Newly qualified nurse Elena (Kia Davis, also taking story and editing credits)...
EIFF 2012: Girimunho
By . Published 23 June 2012An evocative portrait of life in rural Brazil
EIFF 2012: Here, There (Zheli, nali)
By . Published 23 June 2012An elegant meditation on Chinese Diaspora
Rampart
By . Published 22 June 2012A sinking familiarity greets Rampart’s setup. From its plot (corruption in the LAPD) to its players (internal affairs, district attorneys and no-good hoodlums), the film patrols oft-walked streets. The Rampart...
