The Blood Countess review – Isabelle Huppert reigns supreme in a surreal vampire fantasia

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Vienna turns into a playground of camp, cruelty and aristocratic disdain in a blackly comic take on the Báthory legend – with Huppert gloriously suited to the title role From the dark heart of central Europe comes a midnight-movie romp through the moonlit urban glades of Euro-goth and camp from German director Ulrike Ottinger. As for the star … well, it’s the part she was born to play. Isabelle Huppert is Countess Elizabeth Báthory, 16th-century Hungarian noblewoman and serial killer, legendary for having the blood of hundreds of young girls on her hands and indeed her body, in an attempt to attain eternal youth. The “blood countess” has been variously played in the past by Ingrid Pitt, Delphine Seyrig, Paloma Picasso, Julie Delpy and many more, but surely none were as qualified as Huppert who importantly does not modify her habitual hauteur one iota for the role. Her natural aristocratic mien and cool hint of elegant contempt were never so well matched with a part. She gives us the ...
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Jimpa review – Olivia Colman soars in otherwise muddled queer family drama

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Sundance film festival: Australian director Sophie Hyde’s earnest, semi-autobiographical film moves before it starts to meander

More so than other film festivals, Sundance can be a kingmaking force, shining light on an unknown film-maker and then entering into a mutually beneficial relationship with them. Directors return, shifted from smaller to larger venues, off-peak to primetime slots, and watching this steady climb can be a gratifying reward.

The Australian director Sophie Hyde has earned this more than most. Her first film, 52 Tuesdays, a thoughtful drama about a transitioning parent’s relationship with their daughter, won her the festival’s best director prize before she returned five years later with Animals, a sharp and spiky adaptation of Emma Jane Unsworth’s painfully perceptive novel of a fracturing friendship. She returned three years later with Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, an unusually frank and explicit comedy drama with a standout Emma Thompson (who, along with Animals’ Holliday Grainger deserved far more serious awards attention). In just over a decade, Hyde had established herself as someone whose name had become an instant sign of a certain top-tier Sundance quality, a skilled actors’ director whose films burrowed deeper than most.

Jimpa is screening at the Sundance film festival and is seeking distribution

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