‘Reviews’ Archives
Sight & Sound on Lunacy
OK, I promise the next few posts will be about someone other than Jan Švankmajer, but the BFI has just uploaded a selection from the current Sight & Sound onto its website, including my extended review of Lunacy. (And I should also link to, and enthusiastically recommend, Kinoblog commenter David Sorfa's far more exhaustive analysis on the [...]
Intimate Lighting
Intimní osvětlení Czechoslovakia, 1965, black and white, 72 minsAlthough less famous than the Oscar-winning diptych of The Shop on the High Street (Obchod na korze, 1965) and Closely Observed Trains (Ostře sledované vlaky, 1966) or the early work of Miloš Forman (which Ivan Passer co-scripted and worked on as assistant director), Intimate [...]
The Cold Summer of 1953
Холодное лето пятьдесят третьего Mosfilm, USSR, 1988, colour, 100 mins Director: Alexander Proshkin Writer: Edgar Dubrovsky Camera: Boris Brozhovsky Editing: Yelena Mikhailova Design: Valery Filippov Music: Vladimir Martynov Cast: Valery Priyomykhov (Sergei Basargin, 'Chaff'), Anatoly Papanov [...]
Vassilisa the Beautiful
Василиса Прекрасная USSR, 1939, black and white, 72 minsThe second film by director Alexander Row (1906-1973), who throughout his four-decade career specialised almost exclusively in fairytale fantasies (long after they were dismissed as the second-class citizens of Soviet cinema), Vassilisa the Beautiful is based on a famous [...]