Footnote Written by Joseph Cedar Directed by Joseph Cedar Israel, 2011 Footnote is unusual in that it does a number of things well; more to the point, it does a number of things seamlessly. It tells a quintessentially Jewish story in a way that is not just accessible, but relevant, to a non-Jewish audience. It …
Carré Blanc Directed by Jean-Baptiste Leonetti Written by Jean-Baptiste Leonetti France, 2011 Jean-Baptiste Leonetti’s Carre Blanc marks the arrival of someone who promises to be an emerging new talent in genre filmmaking in France. With that said, his directorial debut comes off as a somewhat jejune undergraduate rhetoric about consumerism and corporate supremacy. Leonetti shows …
Alps Directed by Giorgos Lanthimos Written by Efthymis Filippou and Giorgos Lanthimos 2011, Greece The wild card in last year’s best foreign-language category at the Oscars was Giorgos Lanthimos’ sophomore effort Dogtooth, a provocative dark comedy about a husband and wife who raise their children completely isolated and void of any knowledge of the outside …
We Need to Talk about Kevin Written by Lynne Ramsay and Rory Kinnear (novel by Lionel Shriver) Directed by Lynna Ramsay UK & USA, 2011 Hidden at the back of our mind is the darkness that roams the labyrinth. The minotaur becomes the unspeakable evil, the figure with the body of a man and the …
Miss Bala Written by Mauricio Katz & Gerardo Naranjo Directed by Gerardo Naranjo Mexico, 2011 Chance, for better or for worse, suggests circumstances beyond one’s control. Laura Guerrero aspires to be a beauty queen, in part because it means greater opportunities for her family. Chance works against her though, and she stumbles into a gang …
Urbanized Directed by Gary Hustwit 2011, USA/United Kingdom, 82 minutes I expect that fans of director Gary Hustwit’s previous films Helvetica and Objectified are already making plans to see his latest work. They won’t be disappointed. The audience at Friday’s screening certainly wasn’t. Observing the sea of people armed with library books, copies of …
Drive Written by Hossein Amini, from a novel by James Sallis Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn USA, 2011 In one of Albert Brooks’s first scenes in Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive as b-movie-producer-turned-mobster Bernie, Brooks dismisses his former occupation’s body of work. “One critic said they were ‘European.’ I thought they were shit.” Bernie likely wouldn’t …
Dark Horse Directed by Todd Solondz Written by Todd Solondz 2011, USA An intimate dark comedy, Dark Horse, by director Todd Solondz (Welcome To The Dollhouse, Happiness), is a surprise simply because it marks the filmmaker’s most heartwarming movie, making it a more mainstream-friendly affair than his other films. Unfortunately, it is also not as …
Wuthering Heights Directed by Andrea Arnold Screenplay by Olivia Hetreed 2011, UK Based on Emily Brontë’s gothic novel from over 160 years ago, Wuthering Heights is a surprising choice for Andrea Arnold’s third feature. Fans of previous film adaptations are most likely to be disappointed in the new big screen version, but this radical new …