Film Reviews

By Jim Mackney The Road to Mandalay is a bewitching, social-realist drama from Taiwanese film director, Midi Z. The drama focuses on Lianqing (Wu Ke-xi) and her pursuit of a better life in Bangkok. The film’s opening ten minutes portrays the first steps on her journey, including her being smuggled over the Burma/Thailand border. Initially she has only paid enough to gain a place in the boot of the truck but Guo (Kai Ko), a boy from the same Burmese district...

Filmmakers have always enjoyed bringing us unlikely love stories. Whether it is Annie Hall, Harold and Maude, Her, or even Beauty and the Beast there are plenty of films that have shown how love can blossom in the most challenging of environments and circumstances. With On Body and Soul, the latest feature from Ildikó Enyedi, we see a re-imagination of this old formulae. Set in a Budapest abattoir, On Body and Soul follows Endre (Géza Morcsányi) the financial director and...

By Michael McNulty There is little doubt that Maysaloun Hamoud’s film, In Between, is an important and ambitious debut feature. A feminist film, centring on a trio of Palestinian-Israeli women as they struggle to find a balance between the liberal lives they aspire to and the traditional culture that surrounds them. Selma (Sana Jammelieh) and Leila (Mouna Hawa) live in an apartment together in the Jaffa district of Tel-Aviv. Selma is an aspiring DJ who works a series of pick...

On July 5th 1980, Björn Borg, the “Ice Man” of Sweden and the world’s highest ranked tennis player at the time, walked out onto the Centre Court of Wimbledon, hoping to win his fifth consecutive title at the All England Club. An edgy excitement arose from the crowd, yet somehow the Swede remained calm & collected as he strode onto the grass, his mind focused solely on the task at hand. The only obstacle standing is his way was John...

By Wyndham Hacket Pain  Such are the difficulties faced by young people in China jobs can be very hard to find and there has been a trend for them to seek employment within funeral homes. This strange happening was spotted by director Carol Salter and is the subject matter of her debut feature Almost Heaven. It is at one of these homes that we meet Ying Ling, a 17 year old girl who is training to be a mortician. It is...

Set in the latter years of Queen Victoria’s (Judi Dench) reign, Victoria & Abdul tells the story of her unexpected friendship with an Indian servant. Originally only meant to participate in the Queen’s Golden Jubilee, Abdul (Ali Fazal) quickly becomes a devoted servant and friend of the monarch. The extended Royal Family and government are reluctant to accept the relationship, believing that it sends out the wrong message to the Empire, and do all they can to send Abdul back...

By Jim Mackney Like all good folk songs, there is darkness at the heart of Rolando Colla's new film" Seven Days" (Sette Giorni). It is set on an idyllic Sicilian island and a pair of middle-aged dreamers act like a couple of horny teenagers, with predictable complications. Throughout the film the lead characters, Ivan (Bruno Todeschini) and Chiara (Alessia Barela), attempt to figure out their feelings with a quiet determinism that remains throughout the film. Although only 97 minutes long,...

Darren Aronofsky is angry; in fact, he’s furious! Those worried that one of contemporary cinema’s foremost provoc-auteurs would be forced to temper his uncompromising artistic vision following the vitriolic outrage many levelled at his previous feature – 2014’s unfairly maligned biblical blockbuster, Noah - had nothing to fear. Indeed, if the initial reactions from the press corps in Venice are any indication, mother! may well be Aronofsky’s most divisive film to date. It’s certainly, in this critic’s eyes, one of...

By Michael McNulty A beat up car barrels down a dusty road in the remote bad-lands of rural Pakistan, a group of sweaty men, armed to the teeth, sneer as they approach an isolated house. Standing tall, proud and brandishing a Kalashnikov of her own is the young, beautiful Noza (Suhaee Abro). The men pull up and pile out, weapons drawn. They’ve come to take the home. But, Noza won’t go easy; this is her family home, her land and...