by Sarah Cook Julia Ducournau’s cannibalistic debut feature Raw was a triumph. The story of a young woman who, after tasting meat for the very first time, suddenly has a major craving for human flesh was something so devilishly good. It was truly something masterful that we could sink our teeth into and it made us excited for what the French director could cook up next. … Continue reading Titane – BFI London Film Festival Review
by Tom Beasley Il Buco – known as The Hole in English – is a slow movie. I feel like that has to be stated up top. It’s resistant to any sort of plot, features almost no spoken dialogue and moves with all of the urgency of a tortoise accompanying his snail buddy on a leisurely trip to the shops. With that said, director Michelangelo … Continue reading Il Buco – BFI London Film Festival Review
by Sarah Cook It’s a small dusty town in the middle of a desert. The sun is high on an unrelenting sky. The townspeople are enjoying the quiet and peace of their humdrum. The silence is soon interrupted. A horse trots in, and with the swagger of a villain scorned, Idris Elba comes into view and squints at the horizon. There is a bloodbath afoot. … Continue reading The Harder They Fall – BFI London Film Festival Review
by Robbie Jones This week, film fans across the UK need not anticipate any longer, as the 65th BFI London Film Festival is finally upon us. Just like every year before it, the London Film Festival is home to 159 new feature films making their UK debut, now more accessible than ever as the festival trancends it’s London home and stretches to screenings in Belfast, … Continue reading BFI London Film Festival 2021 – Highlights
by Jordan King A quietly menacing malaise laps against the shores of Acapulco, resting at the feet of the Bennett family in Sundown, a sun-kissed and unsettlingly serene anti-thriller from Mexican provoc-auteur Michel Franco. Franco’s film opens with the Bennetts – Neil (Tim Roth), sister Alice (Charlotte Gainsbourg), and her two teenage kids – enjoying life in the lap of luxury at a hotel resort … Continue reading Sundown – BFI London Film Festival Review
by Anton Bitel There is a loose subgenre of home invasion films in which the victims become trapped as much by their disability as by their domestic location – until they find eventual empowerment precisely in their disempowerment. In Walter Grauman’s A Lady In A Cage (1964), Olivia Havilland’s protagonist is rendered helpless both by a broken hip and the stalled cage elevator in which … Continue reading See For Me – BFI London Film Festival
