Alex
EIFF2011: Final Thoughts
In the introductory piece to my coverage of this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival I spoke of the changes that the festival has been through since its 2010 edition. Now that I’m safely back in London it feels like a good time to reflect on how these changes actually affected the festival on a practical [...]
EIFF2011: The Passion of Béla Tarr
Among the many changes made to this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival was the presence of several ‘guest curators’, who included in their number such luminaries as Jim Jarmusch, Gus Van Sant and Béla Tarr, whose latest work, The Turin Horse, also received its UK premiere at the festival. For his contribution, Tarr chose to [...]
EIFF2011: Albatross
When spunky tearaway Emelia (Jessica Brown-Findlay) first meets prim and proper Oxford-applicant Beth (Felicity Jones) working behind the desk of Beth’s parent’s seaside bed and breakfast, she introduces herself as Serena Molina, the new cleaner. Beth, of course, believes this unquestioningly. The charade is soon ended, and the girls become fast friends. Beth, however, isn’t [...]
EIFF2011: The Last Circus
For a certain type of person, there will be much to enjoy in The Last Circus. Its strong cartoon violence and descent into surrealistic craziness will no doubt ensure it cult status. But those of a more sensitive or moral disposition, or even those who just look for tonal consistency, will no doubt find it [...]
EIFF2011: Mysterious Object at Noon
Programmed as part of Edinburgh’s ‘Perspectives’ strand of “classic and rarely seen films”, Thai arthouse director Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s debut feature Mysterious Object at Noon, was made, says Weerasethakul, with no money and no plot. It’s an approach that suits Weerasethakul’s sensibility well. The work is a tapestry of a film, made using André Breton’s exquisite [...]
EIFF2011: The Turin Horse
Even in a world where festival programmes are full to the brim with works belonging to the so-called ‘slow cinema’ form of arthouse filmmaking, the Hungarian director Béla Tarr undeniably remains a unique visionary. His seven-hour Sátántangó has been described as the Holy Grail of the dedicated cinephile, and few filmmakers have ever attempted, let [...]
EIFF2011: The Bang Bang Club
At the start of The Bang Bang Club the South African photojournalist Kevin Carter (as portrayed in the film by actor Taylor Kitsch) is asked what makes a great picture. He hesitates and the film flashes backwards in time, but the moment is returned to later on, and we hear Kevin’s answer: “One that asks [...]
EIFF2011: Mourning for Anna
Perhaps more than any other film I saw at the festival, the title of Catherine Martin’s Mourning for Anna serves as an effective summary for the film itself: after giving an astonishing performance of a late Beethoven piece as part of a quartet, 23 year old Anna is found dead. Her mother goes to an [...]
EIFF2011: Artist Documentaries
Ever since it started out with a programme consisting solely of documentaries back in 1947, EIFF has always retained a special interest in non-fiction work, and this year was no exception. Indeed, buzz amongst the delegates seemed to suggest that the strength of this year’s programme lay, if anywhere, in its two documentary strands (‘UK’ [...]
EIFF2011: Quality Control
After a few brief introductory images, Kevin Jerome Everson’s Quality Control settles on a shot soaking in a small area of the factory-like dry cleaner’s facility in Pritchard, Alabama that the film takes as its subject. As the minutes tick by the shot continues to hold. A worker bustles in and out of frame. The [...]
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