FIlm Review
Film Review: Image of Victory
After World War II and the end of the British Mandate, the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was meant to be a fresh start for a region which had a deep history of turmoil. This brave new world of the territory being split between Jews and Arabs was destined to fail before it even …
Film Review: The Innocents
Childhood is usually depicted on screen as being some kind of wonderful utopian period or time of great unhappiness and danger. The reality is usually somewhere in the middle, a lot of good but also a lot of bad. A time when young adventurous minds crave knowledge and new experiences, but these normally come in …
Film Review: Rhino
Is anyone born evil? The debate around nurture versus nature will likely rumble on in perpetuity, but the environment in which someone grows up plays a huge role in deciding the person they become. That is both in terms of homelife and the society in which the formative years are spent. One bad choice can …
Film Review: Dobermann
Since his breakthrough performance in Mathieu Kassovitz’s masterpiece La Haine in 1995, Vincent Cassel has become one of the most recognisable French actors. While he is now a regular feature in Hollywood films, often portraying the bad guy, much of his best work has been in his native language. The likes of L’Appartement, The Crimson …
Film Review: Night Caller
Today’s modern multiplex horrors are a long way from the video nasties of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Everything is polished to perfection, with the best directors and actors money can buy, and there’s plenty of the green stuff. Whereas cheap and nasty horrors may look low budget, but they often involve a lot …
Film Review: Foxhole
The one thing you don’t normally see depicted in fictional (or factual, for that matter) accounts of war is the sheer terror and confusion of combat situations. Different eras brought their own unique challenges, but chaos and doubt are dangerous when you’re fighting on the frontlines. Logistics and tactics rely on good lines of communication. …
Film Review – The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson
As Europeans began to colonise the new world, myths and legends began to spring up around a number of figures. Tales of outlaws, lawmen and folk heroes travelled across vast expanses of land through word of mouth. While exaggeration and embellishment were par for the course, there is usually an element of truth involved. These …
Film Review: Savage Waters
Animals, by our nature, are curious creatures. Born to explore. To sniff that new scent. Eat that strange smelly thing on the floor. Some are braver than others, but we all learn through experience and being taught. Humans might like to think we’re superior, but when it comes down to it there are far fewer …
Film Review: Arica
As the climate crisis worsens by the day, much more attention is being paid to how we manage waste; nuclear, domestic and industrial. While major corporations and government like to boast about meeting green targets, if you dig a little deeper things become very muddied. Detritus is often shipped abroad in order to be processed, …
Film Review: The Will To See
It’s really difficult to establish reliable numbers, which is worrying in itself, but there is something like forty ongoing wars or conflicts happening right now (although definitions differ). These take the form of major wars, insurrections, civil wars and insurgencies. While the international media has had its camera firmly trained on Ukraine for most of …