Review based on BFI Screening from Film Africa 2020 Festival There is an urgency and clarity of purpose to Damilola Orimogunje's film that makes it defy conventional criticism. This is, formally, a deeply flawed film: it has technical issues with sound; the acting is often substandard; it too often looks like filmed theatre and the … Continue reading For Maria Ebun Pataki (Review) (Film Africa 2020)
Tag: 2020
The Letter (Review) (Film Africa 2020)
Review based on BFI Screening from Film Africa 2020 Festival At the very end, Maia Lekow and Chris King's documentary, The Letter, finally makes sense. It is not that it is nonsensical beforehand, it is that the overall purpose is unclear. The film ends with pictures of headlines of similar stories: rural Kenyan villages where … Continue reading The Letter (Review) (Film Africa 2020)
Finding Sally (Review) (Film Africa 2020)
Review based on BFI Screening from Film Africa 2020 Festival At the heart Tamara Dawit's documentary is the realisation that histories and identities are complex, and that the status of the present and the future relies on understanding, and interrogating, the past. In Finding Sally, Canadian born Tamara Mariam Dawit arrives in Ethiopia - the … Continue reading Finding Sally (Review) (Film Africa 2020)
Le Loup d’Or de Balolé (Review) (Film Africa 2020)
Review based on BFI Screening from Film Africa 2020 Festival One of the greatest strengths of film is as a vessel for empathy. This documentary, set in a granite quarry in Ouagadougou (the capital of Burkina Faso) focuses on the unseen, the unrepresented and the maligned. It confronts you with the humanity of people so … Continue reading Le Loup d’Or de Balolé (Review) (Film Africa 2020)
In Search… (Review) (Film Africa 2020)
Review based on BFI Screening from Film Africa 2020 Festival Many documentaries take on important subjects, but not all of these end up as great documentaries. Fortunately, In Search... gets both sides of the equation right. This Kenyan documentary focuses on an inspiring young woman who decides to undergo reconstructive surgery after having been the … Continue reading In Search… (Review) (Film Africa 2020)
On the Rocks (Review)
For a film about malaise and disappointment, it is perhaps appropriate that On the Rocks feels so flat. This comedy inflected drama is about a married mother of two, Laura (Rashida Jones) investigating her husband's (Marlon Wayans) suspected infidelities at the behest of, and with the help (arguably) of, her father (Bill Murray). The film … Continue reading On the Rocks (Review)
Dick Johnson is Dead (Review)
This documentary about a man (the father of the filmmaker, Kirsten Johson) during the onset of dementia - and beyond - is a powerful, and wonderfully eclectic, work that showcases cinema's ability to both reveal and heal. Despite its heavy subject matter - it is literally a daughter chronicling her dying father - Dick Johnson … Continue reading Dick Johnson is Dead (Review)
Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm (Review)
Fourteen years after Sacha Baron Cohen first brought Borat to screens, the character returns with a more overt purpose. Though the previous film was a satirical comedy based on revealing xenophobia in the United States, it is very telling that the political nature of this sequel has surprised people. Though it is easy to say … Continue reading Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm (Review)
Rebecca (2020) (Review)
Divisive British filmmaker, Ben Wheatley (Kill List, High-Rise, A Field in England) is certainly not the most obvious choice to re-adapt Daphne Du Maurier's hugely popular novel, Rebecca. The book having already been immortalised into film, famously, by Hitchcock (director) and Selznick (producer) in 1940 - and often regarded as one of the greatest films … Continue reading Rebecca (2020) (Review)
Memories of Murder (Reissue Review)
After making history with his modern masterpiece Parasite, Bong Joon-ho's highly acclaimed 2003 drama, Memories of Murder, has been reissued by Curzon (available at some cinemas or for rental from their website). After enjoying a limited run when first released, the film has been somewhat unavailable in the United Kingdom since, this reissue therefore being … Continue reading Memories of Murder (Reissue Review)
Assorted Opinions 