A personal journal of film and documentary reviews, and reviews of anything else that intrigues me.
French and French-language Films
Philippe Grammaticopoulos, “The Bellies / Les Ventres” (2009) Delightful short film inspired in part by Rene Laloux’s animated work, “The Bellies” features a simple story about…
Piotr Dumala, “Franz Kafka” (1992) A 15-minute film of various episodes in the life of early 20th century Czech writer Franz Kafka, this is remarkable mainly…
Jan Svankmajer, “A Quiet Week in the House / Tichy tyden v dome” (1969) A strange little film even by my standards of strangeness, this combines live…
Mikhail Kalatozov, “The Cranes are Flying / Letyat zhuravli” (1957) A soulful film of hope and optimism amid the cruelties of war, this story of a…
French and French-language Films
Marie-Monique Robin, “The World According to Monsanto / Le Monde selon Monsanto” (2008) At issue in this informative documentary directed by the investigative journalist Marie-Monique Robin is…
Marina Zenovich, “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired” (2009) On the surface this film is about Polish-French director Roman Polanski’s conviction for having sex with an underage…
Jindrich Polak, “Tomorrow I’ll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea / Zitra vstanu a oparim se cajem” (1977) One of a number of comic science…
Latin American Films (non-Spanish / non-Portuguese)
Iara Lee, “Modulations, Cinema for the Ear” (1998) Billed as a history of electronic music and music technology in the 20th century. “Modulations …” turns out to…
Australian and New Zealand Films
Matthew Bate, “What the Future Sounded Like” (2006) Here be a good little documentary about the synthesiser company Electronic Music Studios (London) Ltd, formed by British composers…
Tomas Alfredsson, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” (2011) I’m too young to know the 1979 BBC TV series starring Alec Guinness but general critical consensus is that this movie adaptation…