The Debt

10 Oct 2012 Director: John Madden USA 2010 113 min This gripping thriller uses a clever time-shifting technique to keep the audience wondering right until the end just how the events of the past might come to revisit themselves upon the present. The story focuses on a Mossad mission in 1966, when three agents tracked… Continue reading The Debt

Even The Rain

También la lluvia 5 Dec 2012 Director: Iciar Bollain Spain 2010 103 mins The exploitation of South American natives by Christopher Columbus is the starting point of this thoughtful and intelligent Spanish film-within-a-film-within-a-film. A film crew arrives in Bolivia to tell the story of the early Spanish colonists and their impact on the New World,… Continue reading Even The Rain

También la Iluvia

Even the Rain 05 Dec 2012 Director: Iciar Bollain Spain 2010 103 min The exploitation of South American natives by Christopher Columbus is the starting point of this thoughtful and intelligent Spanish film-within-a-film-within-a-film. A film crew arrives in Bolivia to tell the story of the early Spanish colonists and their impact on the New World,… Continue reading También la Iluvia

La téte en friche

My afternoons with Margueritte 21 Sep 2011 Director: Jean Becker France 2010 82 min An intelligent, sensitive, heart warming, comedy in which Gérard Depardieu plays a simple man in a small village in South Western France, who is befriended by an elderly lady (Giséle Casadesus) who reads to him in the park. A touching, light… Continue reading La téte en friche

Winter’s Bone

05 Oct 2011 USA 2010 100 min Director: Debra Granik Gritty yet poetic, Debra Granik’s portrait of life in the poverty-stricken Ozark Mountains is remarkable for the central performance of Jennifer Lawrence in her first film role. Ree Dolly (Lawrence) is the stoical youngster who embarks on a mission to find her absentee father before… Continue reading Winter’s Bone

Des hommes et des dieux

Of Gods And Men 04 Jan 2012 Director: Xavier Beauvois France 2010 122 min A small group of French monks in Algeria face a dilemma when threatened by fundamentalist extremists: should they leave, as the authorities insist, or stay and complete ‘God’s mission’? The palpable inevitability of violence is counteracted by the depiction of the… Continue reading Des hommes et des dieux

Life Above All

01 Feb 2012 Director: Oliver Schmitz South Africa 2010 100 min This raw emotional drama manages to avoid mawkishness despite extremely powerful subject matter, predominantly because of the superb acting on show from the ensemble cast, including several talented youngsters. Central to the story is the universal shame and hypocrisy associated with HIV/AIDS in modern… Continue reading Life Above All

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adéle Blanc-Sec

15 Feb 2012 Director: Luc Besson France 2010 107 min As ever, director Luc Besson handles the fast-moving action comedy very adroitly in this high-spirited adaptation of of a 1970s French comic. The story is a chaotic romp that demands immediate suspension of disbelief: Louise Bourgoin as the title character is a bizarre cross between… Continue reading The Extraordinary Adventures of Adéle Blanc-Sec