‘Reviews’ Archives
Current
Sodrásban Hungary, 1963, black and white, 90 mins Also known as In the Current, this was the debut feature by the 30-year-old István Gaál, and has subsequently been recognised as one of the earliest films of an authentic Hungarian 'new wave'. Gaál had spent two years (1959-61) studying film at the Centro Sperimentale in Rome, and Current [...]
Gypsies
Cigányok Hungary, 1962, black and white, 17 mins If the IMDB is to be believed, this short documentary made for the renowned Béla Balázs Studio is the directorial debut of Sándor Sára, who went on to forge a distinguished career as both director of his own films and cinematographer of other people's, notably Ten Thousand Suns (Tízezer nap, [...]
You…
Te Hungary, 1962, black and white, 10 minsOne of the first films by one of Hungary's greatest contemporary directors, You... is a delightful jeu d'ésprit with a distinctly French nouvelle vague flavour: in particular, it's strongly reminiscent of Jean-Luc Godard's Une Femme Mariée (1964), though Szabó's film was made a couple of years earlier. [...]
Sweet Rush
Tatarak Poland, 2009, colour, 85 mins Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Andrzej Wajda (and, uncredited, Krystyna Janda), based on the story by Jarosław Iwaskiewicz Photography: Paweł Edelman Production Design: Magdalena Dipont Costume Design: Magdalena Biedrzycka Music: Paweł Mykietyn Sound: Jacek Hamela Editing: Milenia Fiedler Producer: [...]
Era New Horizons: New Polish Films 3
My Flesh, My Blood (Moja krew, d. Marcin Wrona, 2009).Director Marcin Wrona announced that the version of his debut film screened at Wrocław wasn't necessarily the final one, and that he'd welcome suggestions for improvement. Sadly, "reshoot it from scratch with a better script" probably wasn't a realistic option, which is a shame as that's by [...]
Era New Horizons: New Polish Films 2
Happy Aphonia (Afonia i pszczoły, d. Jan Jakub Kolski, 2009).With films like Pornography (Pornografia, 2003) and Jasminum (2006), Jan Jakub Kolski established himself as one of modern Polish cinema's more striking individualists, attracting comparisons with Federico Fellini and Emir Kusturica. These are still valid for Happy Aphonia (also known [...]
Era New Horizons: New Polish Films 1
I spent much of the end of July attending the 9th Era New Horizons film festival in Wrocław, Poland, where I was simultaneously covering it for Sight & Sound and sitting on the five-strong jury for the New Polish Films competition. There were thirteen entries (all feature-length Polish fiction films released after 31 July 2008) and two [...]
Daisies
Sedmikrásky Czechoslovakia, 1966, colour/black & white (assorted tints), 73 minsI was planning to post a full-scale review of Second Run's new DVD of Věra Chytilová's Daisies/Sedmikrásky by today, but workload and a commission to write an extended piece on it for Sight & Sound conspired against me.But what I'll certainly say is that [...]
Teethful Smile
Uśmiech zębiczny 1957, black and white, 2 minsHalf a minute longer than his first completed film Murder (Morderstwo, also 1957), Teethful Smile (also known as Teeth Smile and Toothy Smile) is a more complex piece of work, though it's based on a similar concept of exploring voyeuristic impulses. Here, though, there's a voyeur onscreen as well [...]
Murder
Morderstwo Poland, 1957, black and white, 1 minSome artists find their characteristic themes and approaches some distance into their career, while others emerge seemingly fully formed. Roman Polański so unambiguously falls into the latter group that the authorship of his first batch of Łódź Film School shorts (literally the first films he [...]