London Film Festival
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LFF 2015: ‘Ruined Heart: Another Love Story between a Criminal and a Whore’
A quick search of the film Ruined Heart: Another Love Story between a Criminal and a Whore reveals that it is an expanded version of a 2012 short by Filipino poet Khavn De La Cruz (known simply as KHAVN) and that pretty much explains the feature’s shortcomings in a nutshell. More
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BFI London Film Festival 2015: ‘Hitchcock/Truffaut’ essential viewing for true cinephiles
Hitchcock/Truffat Written by Kent Jones and Serge Toubiana Directed by Kent Jones France/USA, 2015 In 1962, Francois Truffaut, one of the glittering leading lights of the French nouvelle vague sat down for a fortnight of intricate and comprehensive interviews with master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock at his offices in sun-blessed Hollywood. Contrary to his current position as one of […] More
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LFF 2015: ‘The Club’ finds moments of grace and meaning amongst the sinful and depraved
Director Pablo Larraín is known for his extremely fascinating social commentaries about his native Chile. Most famously, he tackled the Pinochet regime and its legacy with his trilogy comprising Tony Manero, Post-Mortem and No. With The Club, Larraín looks at Catholicism, another major Chilean institution, and the abuses of power that can occur within the priesthood. More
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LFF 2015: ‘The Corpse of Anna Fritz’ is a surprisingly tame necrophilia thriller
The objectification of women and the ravenous consumption of celebrity culture are some of the very clear themes that inform the narrative of The Corpse of Anna Fritz, the debut feature of Spanish director Hèctor Hernández Vicens. More
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LFF 2015: ‘Mountains May Depart’ is a partly gripping relationship drama that overstays its welcome
Following the brilliant A Touch of Sin, auteur and Chinese master Jia Zhangke returns with a similarly structured, yet more narratively linked, portrait of China in the new millennium. Mountains May Depart is two-thirds of a gripping relationship drama that captures not only a China in constant flux, but also the universality of human experience. More
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LFF 2015: ‘Bone Tomahawk’ is a character-driven Western with a horror spin that engages despite its languid pace
To describe Bone Tomahawk as a “horror-Western” is good shorthand, but could be a little misleading. The film indeed has horror elements but novelist turned screenwriter/director S. Craig Zahler seems more interested in spending time with his four main protagonists as they travel across country, letting their different personalities and world views, and the harshness of the terrain, challenge them on their journey More
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BFI London Film Festival 2015: ‘Assassination’ brings the Tarantino touch to an important period of South Korean history
Assassination is pure entertainment. Director Choi Dong-hoon pulls together an astonishing group of talent both in front and behind the camera to portray a story close to South Korea’s heart with humour, pathos, gorgeous cinematography and a series of impressively bombastic action scenes to create one of the most exciting adventure films in recent years. More
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BFI London Film Festival: ‘Gold Coast’ is a problematic colonialism drama
Stories about slavery can be a tricky proposition, especially if your story is from the Caucasian point of view, because there is a delicate balance to be struck when considering the protagonist’s actions and motivations. More
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BFI London Film Festival 2015 – Ten More Films to Watch
The BFI London Film Festival draws ever closer and the excitement is building towards its inevitable crescendo when Suffragette hits Leicester Square on 8th October to open the festival for its 59th year. PopOptiq will of course be there to cover all the different films and events on offer to sate even the most ravenous […] More
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BFI London Film Festival 2013: ‘The Double’ an ambitious and darkly funny second feature
The Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky has been well served by cinema, especially his major works Crime & Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, and The Idiot, all of which have received numerous adaptations throughout the decades. The latter was lavished with a recent Estonian take, after receiving a Japanese decoding by Kurosawa no less, as well as Indian and (naturally) Soviet versions. It has taken until 2013 for a filmmaker brave enough to approach Dostoyevsky’s binary second novel; there is a certain numerical sense of doubling, since Richard Ayoade has decided to allocate his second film as The Double, an ambitiously promising plea following Submarine back in 2010. More
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BFI London Film Festival 2013: ‘Nebraska’ boasts a grizzled, irascible performance from Bruce Dern
Venerable Woody Grant (a grizzled Bruce Dern) has a singular purpose in mind, to get from his adopted Montana home to neighbouring Nebraska to collect a million-dollar cheque that a suspiciously speculative postal disclaimer has promised to honour. Elderly and suffering with decaying mental functions, Woody clearly can’t see through the marketing scam, and his wife Kate (June Squibb) and son David (Will Forte) grow increasingly exasperated at his dangerous footbound expeditions before arriving at a mutual solution: More
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London Film Festival 2009: A Serious Man
A Serious Man Directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen Written by Joel and Ethan Coen 2009, USA The Coens are getting positively prolific these days, treating their hardcore fans with a movie a year, and with their latest release, A Serious Man they have taken the comedic strand of their work into uncharted waters […] More
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