Film Reviews by CH

Iran is back in the news in 2022……young women demanding that their voices be heard. The message of this film was a stark reminder of the oppression girls and women still suffer under these self serving medieval monsters and their lackey puppets of power.

Crimes without punishment. Can each new generation create his own destiny without fear of retribution, or are we forever condemned to live persecuted by echoes of the crimes and complicities of our fathers? And who shall cast the first stone upon them? A thoughtful film that mirrors modern society still writhing and seething with the heritage of WW2.

A fairly harrowing account of the author’s  youthful years and the mental breakdown that incarcerated her in an antipodean asylum. Whether these institutions were any worse than those anywhere else, it is hard to say. Electro convulsive treatment was routinely used (and still is , though not as routinely) and the pharmaceuticals may have been harsher and more primitive than those prescribed today. Quite how Janet Frame managed to emerge from this 8 year institutional psychiatric torpor with her writer’s spirit undefeated is the miracle of the film.

There was a touch of Klaus Kinski and Fitzcarraldo in this film (which I think was made before Harrison Ford starred in Mosquito coast) Trying to build the impossible in the inhospitable was the theme of both films with Harrison Ford’s descent into (and almost matching Kinski’s) terrifying psychotic paranoia in the jungle 

Excellent and understated Korean film, that despite an adult certification restrains itself from any gratuitous imagery with an opening scene of suicide and subsequent themes of a cold revenge for the cold seduction of a housemaid.

Over here (in Western Europe,) the success of a child at school can be manipulated (to some extent) by attending fee paying schools, living in the right house for a good school allocation, carefully choosing your highflying friends children for play dates, paying for extra curricular activities, ballet, skiing, chess club, piano/violin, extra maths tutoring etc. But it’s still no guarantee that a potential young doctor will be the net result of these parental financial exertions. We all know that. This is a Romanian story of similar parental exertions, the difference is 1950’s crumbling tower block background and the sphere of influence is now a chain of easily corrupted officials within the system. Over here it’s a game called conscious (and lately) unconscious bias at work. In Romania it is called doing what needs to be done to get ahead and get out.

Generally I’m not happy unless squinting at subtitled World cinema category.( see previous reviews). But this film is a rare exception to my rule, as it is Anglophone and is an excellent film. If you want to know what it is about you can read other reviewers, as they will tell you the storyline. But I will sum up, there is an element of equine horror (which may well be a metaphor for the the finanancial horror of 1980’s) that seems to symbolise the watershed of the story.

These days Denmark keeps a quiet profile. Apart from a few grisly TV cop series and Mads Mikkelson we hear very little about the machinations of those Scandi flat lands. So this film fills in a few gaps between Macbeth and The Bridge. Like any Bluebloods there will be weak indifferent Kings, with madness thrown in for good measure. And the men that guide or befriend those Kings will find themselves in the rising deep waters of political tides.

I watched this beautiful film many years ago on Paradiso and have it back on my list. All the dark themes of ancient fairy stories are here, of being cast out and lost, being unloved and lonely, being deceived, and betrayed. And yet there, in a dark corner is that small glittering light. It is hope. If hope can keep a feeble flame burning maybe things will work out. Maybe, and we can all live happily ever after. Maybe.

Having had a wretched relationship with my own mother who was plagued with religious demons, leaving home at 18 (and never returning home) was the best thing I ever did. This film reawakened those on screen emotional exorcisms we witness (and the fact that Ingrid Bergman looked like my own mother made uncanny viewing for me.) This review therefore cannot be a dispassionate critique of Autumn sonata nor a truly valid star rating. And as an post script I will also add that I am a professional classical musician with two adult daughters. Plus ca change etc.

A heartbreaker of a Turkish film, and one of the very best I have watched within the last six months. The feisty youngest sister of four older girls, rebels against a conservative rural upbringing she sees being inflicted upon her and her sisters (who have recently moved from a city suburb to an isolated uncles house after the death of a parent.) There are very dark undertones and implications to the film but they are dealt with sensitively and with enough humour to give this gem of modern Turkish cinema a 5 star rating. Recommend it highly

This film deceives the viewer with a bland opening, a rural Italian idyll for 2 recently orphaned German speaking sisters. They are soon running wild with the local children, climbing trees, swimming in rivers, and discovering the facts of life from a household servant’s amorous trysts with a local soldier. Storm clouds are gathering over Europe and a visiting Catholic priest warns the family that they will need to leave and go into hiding as the Germans are coming across the border and will requisition their house for troops. As this is based upon a true story it is almost impossible to judge the film critically and give it a rating. So let’s say it has to be 5stars because ultimately the film is the true and tragic fate of just one family in WW2 buried somewhere outside Florence.

‘The mind has mountains, sheer cliffs of fall.’ We live our lives, seemingly rewarded by the smiling will of unknown gods. But equally these gewgaw trinkets of status and success can be snatched away and the demons and dark forces of nightmares move in to torment, mock and haunt us on that descent into the the abyss. 

You won''t need any persuading that this is the greatest screen adaptation of War and Peace. The Russian government threw vast sums of money at the 1960's production of this Tolstoy epic in a move to eclipse the 1950's American version. The troubled relations between feudal Czarist Russia, divisive European Emperors and the upstart adventurer Napolean Bonaparte form the backdrop of War and Peace. If you don't have time to read Tolstoy's great book then watch this poignant masterpiece instead.

An early, fast paced film from Jean Renoir......a homage to American cinema? Whilst undoubtedly a French language film, the style is early Hollywood featuring a bottle blonde who kicks ass when it needs to be kicked, runs a laundry and even breaks into a high warbling song worthy of Edith Piaf. As a previous reviewer has bluntly stated, the charms of this film would be lost on younger audiences.... Monsieur Lange has it's devotees, but they are more likely to be found amongst french film afficionados who are able to place it within the historic and political context of the 1930's.