Cal review – grieving Helen Mirren superb in compassionate Troubles romance

-
Mirren won best actress at Cannes in 1984 for her role as Marcella, who forms a relationship with John Lynch’s Cal – a man complicit in her husband’s murder Pat O’Connor’s Northern Irish movie from 1984, adapted by author Bernard MacLaverty from his own novel, holds up very well for its rerelease; better in fact than most of the movies and TV drama made about and during the Troubles. It has an unhurried, thoughtful and very human quality; Helen Mirren won the best actress award at Cannes for her performance here and in fact it is very well acted across the board by a blue-chip cast. Mirren plays Marcella, a woman from a Catholic background, married across the sectarian divide to a reserve police officer murdered at his parents’ farmhouse by an IRA man who had bullied a bewildered local guy into being his getaway driver; this is Cal, played by the gauntly intense John Lynch. Cal lives with his widowed father; a gentle performance by Donal McCann, who was Gabriel Conroy in John Huston’...
Post a Comment

Living Together review – how Austrians teach immigrants to find their place in society

-

New arrivals sit in drab spaces and are learn how to fit in, in a film that quietly addresses the costs of integration to minority groups

Thomas Fürhapter’s documentary sheds light on the challenges of adjusting to a new culture as it follows a series of “integration classes” offered to immigrants in Vienna. The film opens in the nondescript corridors of an administrative building, which lead into sun-filled but impersonal meeting rooms where these sessions take place. As the participants discuss their worries and uncertainties, these colourless spaces transform into sites of passion and community.

Conducted in multiple languages, the seminars grapple with culturally specific issues faced by different minority groups. Topics of discussion range from Austrian ways of greeting, to more serious concerns such as racism and domestic abuse. In talking about the present and the future, people also reveal pieces of their past: some moved to Austria for love, others fled the horrors of war. Despite their different circumstances, what unites these individuals from all walks of life is a heartfelt desire to belong.

Continue reading...

from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/H8NT1ZO
via IFTTT

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

-
A lot of Bollywood films have re-released off late but when it comes to Hollywood, a handful of classics have had a re-run in cinemas. Last month, Interstellar re-released and received a rocking response. However, it just had a one-week run. If you missed watching the cult film in cinemas, here’s a reason for you to rejoice. The film will be back on the big screen on March 14, that too in IMAX. Moreover, Warner Bros will also bring back Dune: Part Two on the same day in theatres. A source told Bollywood Hungama, “Interstellar has a huge demand as it’s a film worth watching in theatres, that too IMAX. However, it re-released on February 7 and had to discontinued from February 14 to accommodate the new releases, Chhaava and Captain America: Brand New World. Both these films got a release in IMAX as well.” The source continued, “Many were aware that Interstellar had just a one week run. Hence, it held very well in the weekdays, collecting Rs. 2 crore plus. Yet, there was a section of mo...
Read more

‘I lied to get the part’: Melvyn Hayes on his ‘angry young man’ beginnings – and It Ain’t Half Hot Mum

-
He was tipped to be the next Richard Burton – but ended up as crossdressing Gunner Gloria in the now controversial sitcom. As his breakthrough classic returns to the screen, Hayes looks back One day in 1957, Melvyn Hayes was on the set of a film called Woman in a Dressing Gown when a man sat down next to him. “I was getting paid £5 a day and I’d been on location for three days,” the actor recalls. “All I had to do was walk up to a house and put a newspaper through a letterbox. That was my part. Finished. I said to this bloke, ‘I can’t believe the waste of money on this film. Take me. You could have got a newspaper boy on £1 a day to do what I’m doing.’ Then I said, ‘What do you do then, you lazy bugger?’ And he said, ‘I’m the producer.’” Hayes, now 89, giggles at the memory of the cheek of himself at 23. Back then, £5 a day was a decent whack. His first job in showbiz, in the early 1950s, was as assistant to The Great Masoni, a magician who tasked Hayes with “disappearing twice daily...
Read more

The Portable Door review – Harry Potter-ish YA fantasy carried by hardworking cast

-
Jeffrey Walker’s adaptation of the young-adult fantasy novel retains its edge thanks to its performances, but gets stuck on the whole door thing Adapted from Tom Holt’s 2003 young-adult fantasy novel, this is a passable attempt at kickstarting a new Harry Potter-style franchise set in a fusty-quirky institution, dosed up with extra Gilliamesque grotesquery. Co-produced by the Jim Henson Company, the production design is poky and intense, and the cast – with Christoph Waltz and Sam Neill larking it up – give it their all. But amid all this clutter, it sometimes has trouble moving its story forward. The Portable Door has a nice conceit: the venerable London corporation of JW Wells & Co is responsible for engineering all the daily incidents of coincidence and serendipity that happen in urban life. Not that wet-behind-the-ears intern Paul Carpenter (Patrick Gibson), desperate for any gig, knows the company’s raison d’etre when he signs up. He appears to have no discernible talents wh...
Read more