Béla Tarr’s quest for cinematic perfection made him my ideal, impossible mentor | László Nemes

The Son of Saul director recalls how getting his first job as assistant to the austere master was a hard but inspiring lesson in the most ambitious kind of movie-making News: Hungarian director Béla Tarr dies aged 70 The last time I saw Béla Tarr was a few years ago at the Nexus conference in Amsterdam. We were invited to speak about the state of the world and of the arts. We both thought light and darkness existed in the world, even if our perception about them differed. Béla was already weakened in his body, but the spirit was still ferocious, rebellious, furious. We sat down to talk. It seemed fairly obvious this would be our ultimate, and most heartfelt, conversation. As the former apprentice, I was able to see the master one last time, with all his rage, sorrow, love and hate. I first met Béla in 2004 when he was preparing The Man from London. I wanted to learn film-making and applied to become an assistant on the film. He gave me my first real job: as an assistant, I had to fi...

Butterfly Tale review – kids insect story wants to take long trip south to Mexico

Anodyne children’s picture provides some gentle entertainment once you forgive the cloying anthropomorphism

‘Is that a butterfly fairy?” asks a confused seven-year-old who watches with me, pointing to the screen at the start of this Canadian animated tale. Nope. The purple creature with a humanish face and body, dressed in a hoodie, wings poking out of its back, is in fact the film’s rendering of a monarch butterfly. The film-makers behind this have really outdone themselves with their tackily revolting anthropomorphic butterflies. Still, if you can get past mutilating a wonder of nature, the movie is a harmless and rather sweet cartoon for under-eights.

Teenager Patrick is a monarch who cannot fly because of an undeveloped wing. His dad was a big hero in the community after pecking out the eye of a fearsome eagle (he paid the price too). But because of his wing, Patrick has been banned from taking part in the annual winter migration south to Mexico. Not this year, says his overprotective mum. (The film ignores the fact that the monarchs make their incredible epic journey only once.) So, Patrick turns stowaway, hiding in the emergency food supply with his chubby caterpillar pal.

Continue reading...

from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/GVujvZ9
via IFTTT

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Miracle Club review – Maggie Smith can’t save this rocky road trip to Lourdes

BREAKING: Interstellar back in cinemas due to public demand; Dune: Part Two to also re-release on March 14 in IMAX

‘I lost a friend of almost 40 years’: Nancy Meyers pays tribute to Diane Keaton