An attractive and engaging feminist film that allows us – the audience – to really care for the characters, La Belle Saison (which translates as Summertime) is also a period piece. The year in 1971. Delphine (Izia Higelin), the daughter of hard-working farmers, moves to Paris to break free of the shackles of her parents…
Godland was the centrepiece of the recent Scandinavian Film Festival, and now this slow moving but visually stunning Danish drama gains a cinematic release. The film is set in the frozen inhospitable wilds of Iceland in the 19th century. Lucas (Elliot Crossett Hove) is a young idealistic Lutheran priest who is sent to Iceland to…
You might have seen Lars Von Trier’s film Melancholia. This world premiere stage production is based on it. But if you enter the theatre knowing nothing about it, I dare say you’re likely to find much perplexing. Suffice to say that like the film, events unfold in two distinct chapters. Underpinning both is depression that…
Safely ensconced here in the Southern Hemisphere, few Australians have first-hand experience of America’s sometimes-toxic racial politics. In general, we experience it from afar, via either the news or some other media (like the recent film Get Out). Our national experience, while arguably no better than the USA’s, is however markedly different. So the Netflix…
Poignant and compelling, the Australian premiere of six-time Tony Award winner Dear Evan Hansen – about a socially anxious 17-year-old – is a theatrical triumph. Steven Levenson (who received the gong for Best Book) has injected warmth and humour into the slice of life drama that makes for an enthralling narrative. Powerful and resounding music…
The first time I saw Marcus Mumford perform songs from his band Mumford & Sons was at the Factory Theatre in 2008. He was supporting Laura Marling on her first Australian tour (as well as playing as part of her band) and his set was just him with a guitar, kick drum and kick tambourine….
At the risk of offending true believers, this is a church movie. It pivots around forgiveness. To the best of my knowledge, it was largely, if not entirely, funded from church resources. I dare say its key audience will be those of the faith, and ex-pat New Zealanders (it was made there, and is set…
Dinuka McKenzie’s police detective Kate Miles is back for the third time in Tipping Point, and once again her family and community connections are central to the story. Miles was introduced in McKenzie’s award winning debut The Torrent and returned in Taken. This third book in the series could be the last if for no…
This is theatre of the absurd, where you can try in vain to make sense of what you are seeing. Suffice to say that it is commentary on man’s inhumanity to man, on selfishness and tragedy and loss. It is the brainchild of director and screenwriter Roy Andersson, a Swede who with it…
An intense and visceral experience, Dunkirk is war up-close and personal like few films before it. Christopher Nolan (Interstellar) writes, directs and co-produces the action-packed drama. The picture opens as hundreds of thousands of British and Allied troops are surrounded by German forces. Trapped on the beach at Dunkirk in northern France with their backs to…
