Traffic Department Written and directed by Wojciech Smarzowski Poland, 2013 The eponymous police department of Wojtek Smarzowski’s film is made up of such corrupt individuals that any one of them could plausibly be the star of their own Bad Lieutenant. Rampant debauchery is the norm for the Warsaw officers, their vices extending beyond dabbling in simple …
Best known in the English-speaking world for his Hollywood thriller, Contraband, starring Mark Wahlberg, Baltasar Kormákur returns to his native Iceland to direct the tale of one of its modern legends. In 1984, a fishing boat sunk off the coast of Westman Islands, killing its entire crew with the sole exception of the unassuming Gulli (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson). Incredibly, despite being overweight and a heavy drinker, he survived by swimming for up to six hours through the treacherous waters of the North Atlantic Ocean, becoming a national hero and scientific phenomenon in the process.
Virginia Gilbert’s A Long Way from Home, an adaptation of her own short story, explores issues of complacency and desire in old age. Having met at 23, couple Joseph and Brenda (James Fox and Brenda Fricker) have been married for 50 years, living out their retirement in France’s Nimes region. As former British citizens, the locale choice was meant to make things like a never-ending holiday, but the unchanging routine of their life – including eating at the same restaurant every night and repetitive mornings based around crosswords, letter-posting and the lingering listening choice of BBC Radio 4 from back home – now feels mundane and oppressive to Joseph.
Drake Doremus’s latest film, Breathe In, is a taut, emotional drama, starring Guy Pearce as a middle-aged high school music teacher who has never abandoned his dream of becoming a full-time musician. His character, Keith, is living in a state of continual but indifferent regret; despite having a loving wife (Amy Ryan), highly-achieving daughter (Mackenzie Davis) and beautiful house in upstate New York, he yearns for the exciting bohemian lifestyle of his youth, of which only his passion for music remains. The domestic inertia is broken when the family accept an English exchange student into their home, the 18-year-old piano prodigy, Sophie (Felicity Jones), who rekindles Keith’s romantic nostalgia and forces him to revaluate his responsibilities to his family and himself.
Berberian Sound Studio Written and directed by Peter Strickland UK, 2012 Berberian Sound Studio is an unusual thriller with a very striking atmosphere. Set amidst the production of a 1970s Italian horror production, it is definitely informed stylistically by giallo films, but also bears strong resemblances to David Lynch, early Roman Polanski and certain efforts …
One Two One Written by Mania Akbari and Majid Eslami Directed by Mania Akbari Iran, 2011 Iranian actress-director Mania Akbari’s latest film is a hypnotising mood piece, rooted in both experimental and theatrical styles. Composed entirely of less than fifteen long takes of varying lengths, the film presents a series of vignette conversations and encounters …
Lawless Written by Nick Cave Directed by John Hillcoat USA, 2012 Director John Hillcoat and musician Nick Cave have collaborated numerous times since the late 1980s, from Cave having starred in Ghosts… of the Civil Dead to composing Hillcoat’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Lawless marks their second collaboration involving Cave as screenwriter, following …
What Is This Film Called Love? Written and directed by Mark Cousins UK, 2012 Mark Cousins’ latest film follows his tremendous fifteen hour epic The Story of Film: An Odyssey, but is a polar opposite work from that documentary in terms of scale and ambition. Indeed, the creation of What Is This Film Called Love? …
Life Without Principle Written by Kin-Yee Au, Ka-kit Cheung, Ben Wong, Nai-Hoi Yau and Tin-Shing Yip Directed by Johnnie To Hong Kong, 2011 Just one of the ever-prolific Johnnie To’s latest efforts, Life Without Principle weaves together a triumvirate of stories, each concerned with the effects of the current global economic crisis. Its English title …
V/H/S Written by David Bruckner, Ti West, Radio Silence, Simon Barrett, Nicholas Tecosky and Glenn McQuaid Directed by Adam Wingard, David Bruckner, Ti West, Glenn McQuaid, Joe Swanberg and Radio Silence (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, Justin Martinez, Chad Villella) USA, 2012 A collaborative anthology feature, V/H/S is essentially five short films in the “found footage” …
Isn’t Anyone Alive? (Ikiterumono wa inainoka) Written by Shirô Maeda Directed by Gakuryu Ishii Japan, 2012 Set around a university and its campus hospital, veteran director Gakuryu Ishii’s play adaptation follows several groups of students, and the occasional older presence, who go about their everyday lives against the backdrop of a series of mysterious public …
Hospitalité (Kantai) Directed by Koji Fukada Japan, 2010 Hospitalité opens with the slow introduction of the family of Mikio Kobayashi, a man running a print business through his home. He lives with his young second wife Natsuki, his daughter Eriko, and sister Seiko, who has returned following a recent divorce. Bar the disappearance of a …
Fred Written and directed by Richard Ledes USA, 2012 The titular character of Richard Ledes’ new film, played by Elliott Gould, is an elderly man living with his wife Susan (Judith Roberts), a sufferer of Alzheimer’s. Often at odds with Susan’s endlessly patient live-in nurse, Fred demonstrates frustration at his wife’s condition; not dismissive with …
Pusher Written by Matthew Read Directed by Luis Prieto UK, 2012 1996’s Pusher launched the career of director Nicolas Winding Refn, and was followed by two sequels in the early 2000s. With some recurring characters but differing leads in each of the trilogy’s films, the first in the series concerned a man growing increasingly desperate, …
The 2012 installment of the Edinburgh International Film Festival runs from June 20th to July 1st, and marks the return of major awards of incarnations prior to 2011’s edition. This year’s line-up is distinctive in its feeling of being a heavily curated affair courtesy of artistic director Chris Fujiwara, rather than just a selection of …