Film Reviews Blog

This page only shows films that have a review. By default in date order of reading with newest at top

Tuesday 20th December 2022

Iran 2018

Running time: 100 mins

3 Faces

Se rokh

Director : Jafar Panahi

Film Summary :
Aspiring young actress trapped in her village life sends video to famous actress to get her to rescue her.
Film Category
Film Tags

Reviewed by rogerco, DVD proj @ home on 20 Dec 2022

Strange, but again unsatisfying

It starts by concentrating on two faces, for the first few minutes we only see Marziyeh  filming herself talking to camera, then we cut to Behnaz's face for a few minutes as she is in Jafari's car heading north and they are discussing the video.

It then opens out to more conventional shots as they get near the village, but the people they encounter seem alien to my western eyes and their motives and meanings are unclear. As the truth about Marziyeh unfolds through her family and friend, Maedeh (?), we see an ancient self contained community living in what seem tumbledown homes and the incipient conflict between the pressure of the modern and the rock of community and culture.

In the end Marziyeh does 'escape' with Behnaz and Jafari - but isn't she escaping to a more gilded and less substantial cage? Perhaps this is the meaning of the unseen third face of the old pre-revolution actress who has retired to live alone and isolated in the village and who has befriended Marizyeh..




Saturday 17th December 2022

UK 2021

Running time: 87 mins

Bank Job

Film Summary :
A documentary about an art project to buy up junk debt and destroy it

Reviewed by rogerco, Streamed proj @ home on 17 Dec 2022

Review Summary :
A creative documentary

An Entertaining Job

Not really a film about money and how debt works - although that came in to it. The focus was more on the mechanics of the creative project - printing and selling your own "money" and using the proceeds to support the local community by donating to local causes and symbolically destroying some local debt by blowing up a van full of a million bits of paper saying "debt"

More a film about filmmaking than an explanatory documentary - ultimately the explosion is just a film-makers trope (wank?) but quite entertaining along the way - lots of good real people doing stuff outside the system.




Wednesday 7th December 2022

USA 2017

Running time: 88 mins

Lucky

Director : John Carroll Lynch

Film Summary :
Old man in Arizona small town
Film Category

Reviewed by rogerco, DVD proj @ home on 07 Dec 2022

Review Summary :
Pretty dull

Luckily its not too long

Really nothing much happens. We just see some days in the life of an old man living independently and some of the people around who support him despite his slightly cantankerous nature.

I guess the yanks like it as a portrait of rugged individualism persisting until ner the end of life. Its unrealistic and tedious.




Saturday 26th November 2022

France 2016

Running time: 66 mins

My Life as a Courgette

Ma vie de Courgette

Director : Claude Barras

Film Summary :
Also known as My Name is Courgette which makes more sense as a title. A better translation of the french title would be My Life As Courgette without the 'a'

Rated by rogerco, Streamed proj @ home on 26 Nov 2022

Review Summary :
Sometimes keeping things simple is best



Saturday 19th November 2022

France 1985

Running time: 101 mins

Vagabond

Director : Agnes Varda

Film Summary :
A young drifter's story through the rural South of France told by those who encountered her.
Film Category

Rated by Roger CO, DVD proj @ home on 19 Nov 2022