A personal journal of film and documentary reviews, and reviews of anything else that intrigues me.
Ivan Maximov, “Provincial School” (1992) Amusing little animated short, running at under five minutes, about a most unusual country school where the kids resemble foetuses of…
Asghar Farhadi, “A Separation / Jodái-e Náder az Simin” (2011) A tragic story about how good intentions can start off a snowball that turns into an…
French and French-language Films
Louis Feuillade, “Les Vampires (Part 5: L’évasion du Mort)” (1916) This time in the serial, the crooked businessman Juan José Moreno (Fernand Herrmann) plays the leading role…
French and French-language Films
Louis Feuillade, “Les Vampires (Part 2: La Bague qui tue)” (1915), “Les Vampires (Part 4: Le Spectre)” (1916) Here be two further episodes in which investigative…
French and French-language Films
Louis Feuillade, “Les Vampires (Part 1: La tête coupée)” (1915) First episode in a ten-part serial about a gang of criminals called Les Vampires and the…
Annabel Gillings, “Fukushima: Is Nuclear Power Safe?” (2011) Eminently likeable scientist-presenter Jim al-Khalili goes on a trip to Fukushima – the infamous site where three nuclear reactors suffered…
Dear USE Readers, As of 1 March 2012, over 300 films have been seen and remarked upon by Yours Truly. Quite some feat! The majority of…
Jan Svankmajer, “Jabberwocky / Zvahlav aneb Saticky Slameneho Huberta” (1971) Inspired by the Lewis Carroll poem of the same name, and which it dispenses with early…
Bahman Ghobadi, “No-one Knows About Persian Cats” (2009) An ingenious film that uses a fiction plot to structure and showcase the Iranian pop music scene and…
Latin American Films (Spanish language)
Luis Buñuel, “Simon of the Desert / Simón del Desierto” (1965) Buñuel skewers again institutional religion and sanctimonious belief, this time in a satire based on the…