Goebbels and the Führer review – private life of propagandist shows grotesque heart of Nazism

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Joachim Lang’s bleak film shows a preening Goebbels and a careworn Hitler as they battle to convince the German public, and themselves, they will win the war In an appropriate spirit of cynicism and bleakness, German director Joachim Lang has made a film about the private life of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, the Hexenmeister or chief sorcerer of lies, and his always strained relationship with Hitler. Robert Stadlober plays the preening and self-pitying Goebbels and Fritz Karl is a careworn Hitler. Franziska Weisz plays Goebbels’s wife Magda, who at first resented his infidelities with showbusiness starlets but for the sake of the Fatherland submitted to the public image of a good Nazi wife and mother of six adorable children – whom Joseph and Magda finally murdered in the bunker before killing themselves. In its subversive, austerely satirical way, the film feels almost like a B-side to Oliver Hirschbiegel’s Downfall from 2004, and Lang has perhaps even inhaled, just a little,...
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Where the Wind Blows review – a heady mix of gangster lore, lust and lawlessness

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Hong Kong stars Aaron Kwok and Tony Leung Chiu-wai play corrupt police officers in Philip Yung’s ambitious but over-the-top crime epic

This stunning-looking but chronologically restless Hong Kong-set crime epic unfurls across 50-odd years from the mid-20th century; it revolves around two frenemy protagonists, corrupt police officers played here by Aaron Kwok and Tony Leung Chiu-wai, who were inspired by real-life Hong Kong cops/triad front men back in the day. Altogether, it’s a heady mix of potted history, period detail, violence, gangster lore, lust and lawlessness on which writer-director Philip Yung (Port of Call) really goes to town, splashing budget money like petrol all over the place and then throwing a lighted match on top just to see the pretty flames. The ambition and swagger is undeniably admirable, but the end result is a bit of a charred mess – or perhaps more flatteringly a burnt offering to some of the many film-makers Yung (a former film critic) clearly has the hots for, such as Martin Scorsese in gangster-movie mode, early 2000s Wong Kar-Wai and Infernal Affairs’ Andrew Lau among many others.

It’s not always easy to follow the plot; Yung and his team keep weaving back and forth between a yellow-gel-viewed 1970s, black-and-white times when the Japanese occupied Hong Kong during the second world war, and the 60s when colours were at their lushest, the women all wore cheongsams and the men all had razor-sharp tailored suits. But, roughly, here’s the idea: Lui Lok (Kwok) and Nam Kong (Leung Chiu-wai) both hail from very different backgrounds, and are traumatised by the war in different ways. The two men, along with assorted henchmen with funny nicknames like Limpy and Chubby, set a treaty with the triads to keep the peace and get a cut of the money from gambling dens, the drug trade and prostitution.

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