British Cinema
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THE GREEN MAN (Dir. Robert Day, 1956)
Alastair Sim had that rare natural faculty, innately switching from pleasant English gentleman to scheming bastard, all with the quintessential shit eating grin. The Green Man, a cornerstone of Sim’s acting career, finds him playing a semi-retired assassin with an international reputation of bumping off third rate dictators. In what appears to be one of Continue reading
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THE GOOD DIE YOUNG (Dir. Lewis Gilbert, 1954)
Released in 1954, Lewis Gilbert’s The Good Die Young, a neglected British-American hybrid noir, relates a post office robbery through a series of flashbacks in which we are introduced to the four central protagonists who collectively come to signify a masculinity in crisis; a new post war malaise. It is worth noting that Gilbert’s noir Continue reading
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THE NINE MUSES (Dir. John Akomfrah, 2010, UK)
A video essay or an experimental film? John Akomfrah’s masterly analysis of immigration is a video essay that fluently mixes archive footage with mythological musings. Although it might be useful for critics to label this as an experimental work, the emotional impact of the narrative journey which is based on Homer’s Odyssey, resonated with me Continue reading
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TRISHNA (Dir. Michael Winterbottom, 2012, UK) – The Troubled Maiden
The beautiful Freida Pinto as Trishna. Micheal Winterbottom works so quickly that it’s hard to keep up with him. His latest feature sees him returning to Thomas Hardy, this time adapting Tess of the d’Urbervilles for a contemporary postmodern treatment. The setting is modern day Rajasthan and the cast is made up of Riz Ahmed Continue reading
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