Books & Arts > Film
Film review: Oh, Canada
THE film Oh, Canada (Cert. 15) is a meditation on mortality. The director, Paul Schrader, is no stranger to the subject. From his Taxi Driver script to the recent God’s Lonely Men trilogy (First Reformed, The Card Counter,…
Conflagration (re-release) (Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme)
THIS year’s Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme includes Conflagration (no certification) from 1958. The remastered print and themes remain as fresh as ever.It was inspired by true events and fictionalised in Yukio…
Film review: H is for Hawk
IT CAN be hard for someone to realise when a well-nigh religious passion tips over into obsessional behaviour. This is the gauntlet that H is for Hawk (Cert. 12A) throws down.Based on Helen Macdonald’s 2014 memoir, it charts…
Film review: Dreamers
THE film Dreamers (Cert. 15) is heartbreaking and yet hopeful, with a flavour reminiscent of St Paul’s letters from prison. Isio (Ronke Adékoluejo), an undocumented immigrant, is sent to a detention centre, awaiting decisions…
Film review: Wake Up Dead Man
THE film Wake Up Dead Man (Cert. 12A) is the latest in the Knives Out series of crime mysteries. Remarkably, its star, Daniel Craig, as the private detective Benoit Blanc doesn’t enter the movie for about 40 minutes.…
Film review: The Carpenter’s Son
THE film The Carpenter’s Son (Cert. 15) owes its inspiration to the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, a second-century apocryphal depiction of Jesus’s boyhood. Scholars widely consider it unhistorical and, from St Irenaeus onwards,…
Film review: Priest (Blu-ray release)
IT IS truly laudable that the 1994 film Priest (Cert. 15) is finally on Blu-ray, a format getting nearer cinema’s audio-visual quality than DVD. Likewise, its larger storage capability enables the addition of several…
Valley of the Shadow of Death
THE film Valley of the Shadow of Death (Cert. 15) centres on a clergy family after an earlier tragedy. Pastor Leung (Anthony Chau-Sang Wong) is being questioned by a journalist while his wife (Louisa So) noisily tidies up,…
Film review: The Choral
SET in 1916, when Christianity was enlisted in support of jingoism, The Choral (Cert. 12A) concerns Ramsden, a Yorkshire village low on male singers. Alan Bennett’s script — his first since Prick Up Your Ears (1987) not to…
Film review: Sketch
HISTORICALLY, Angel Studios has strong associations with the Mormons. It aims to produce and/or distribute faith-filled movies such as The King of Kings (Arts, 4 April) or, at least, inspiring “values-based” entertainment,…
TRENDING
