Terence Davies is a director whose work is systematically outpaced by reputation. Unlike many directors who hit the ground running straight out of film school, Davies left school at the …
Melody
This utterly charming film was born of a clever bit of business. Already successful in the field of advertising and an experienced director in his own right, David Puttnam decided …
Paterson
While the rhetoric of politicians may change, we are still living in an age of austerity. “Austerity” was the word used to convince the poor that they needed to pay …
Indochine
Way back in 1975, the Nigerian novelist and critic Chinua Achebe described Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as an offensive and deplorable book that de-humanised African people by reducing them …
Chevalier
Few European directors are as deserving of your time as Athina Rachel Tsangari. Born in 1966, Tsangari’s filmmaking career began after leaving her native Greece to attend film school at …
La Grande Vadrouille
Cultural identity is a funny old thing… Ask your average British or American cinema-goer what kind of films they associate with France and you will likely receive a description of …
Nostalgia
One of the more depressing developments in the market for art house film has been the tendency to collapse the market for world cinema into one large amalgamated market for …
Flower of my Secret
Work your way through the six films included in the excellent Almodóvar Collection and you will begin to notice certain recurring motifs. Aside from Pedro Almodóvar’s fondness for transgressive imagery …
Kika
Back when distribution companies first began releasing and re-packaging the collected works of particular directors, eccentricities of choice could easily be explained away in terms of problems securing rights to …
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
While Law of Desire may have been the film that brought Pedro Almodóvar to a global audience, it was Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown that cemented his …