Monday, October 28, 2013

Baraka - Sunday 27th October 5pm at Rheged

Those who saw 'Samsara' last year at Rheged will need no introduction to this week's film. This was so popular we weren't sure what to follow it with; 'Baraka' was director Ron Fricke's first 'wordless documentary'. It is a similar attempt to explore our relationship with the world around us, showing the visual beauty that exists in 24 countries whilst pointing out our abilities to destroy them. Filmed with time-lapse photography, using 70mm film, the result is a stunning tour-de-force round the world, a 'guided meditation' which leaves audiences in awe; as Mike McCahill said in the Guardian - 'The only reaction permitted is gawping'. Based on the 'Rotten Tomatoes' audience score of 95%, this is going to be a contender for our best film of the season.




Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Selam - Sunday 27th October 5pm

In Anatolia 25 years ago, twelve idealist teachers left their home country to take their teaching skills to countries with poor education. This Sunday's film tells the story of three of these people, Harun, Zehra and Adem. Harun goes to Senegal and Zehra to war-torn Afghanistan, whilst Adem finds himself in Boznia Herzegovnia, leaving his pregnant wife behind in Turkey.

Monday, October 14, 2013

In The Fog - Sunday 20th October 5pm

This week's film promises to be a thing of beauty, whilst giving us plenty to think about too.  "In the Fog" is "one of the best Russian films to open in Britain over the past decade" , says Philip French in the Guardian. The story is a moral maze set in occupied Belarus in 1942, where anyone might turn out to be a friend or an enemy. Is our hero Sushenya - who  himself can trust no-one in the fog of war - a true partisan, or a traitor to the cause?  Visually, the cinematographer Oleg Mutu gets highly praised for producing beautiful long takes with muted colours through the fog of the Belarussian forests.  For the Director Sergei Loznitsa, this is his second film to be nominated for the Palme D'Or at Cannes.  A good story, well acted, beautifully photographed with award-winning direction; an evening to look forward to, then.


Monday, October 07, 2013

Sleep Tight - Sunday 13th October 5pm

For those of us still quaking from Luis Tosar's performance in Cell 211 (and only slightly mollified by the gentler side of him in Even the Rain), heart rates are likely to be raised again by his appearance in Sleep Tight. Philip French in the Observer said "Sleep Tight, is a psychological thriller set in a slightly superior but shabby art nouveau apartment house, also in Barcelona, which is at the mercy of an embittered concierge, César Marcos (Luis Tosar), a sad psychopath on the brink of middle age. César has it in for the world and especially the tenants he's supposed to be helping, and the picture is a frightening study of unmotivated malevolence."

Directed by Jaume Balguero, who has previously directed two movies also set within apartment blocks, Total Film sums up Sleep Tight as "Clever suspense cinema with a gleam in its eye and ice in its heart from an emergent Spanish A-lister. Hitchcock himself would be proud, and maybe shocked"

Running time is 105 minutes giving a finish time of around 6.50pm.