Sight & Sound. July 08.

The online sample from Sight & Sound's Cannes package in the new issue comes from Nick James: "Instead of the flop romcoms and hopeless gangster films that were loudly boosted in the markets (having failed to be selected by the festival) of the dying 20th century, the British films being vaunted this year are all from genuine artistic talents - and were selected by Cannes. What's more, their producers and executives seem a more thoughtful breed than their forebears. And if it's a welcome anomaly that Steve McQueen's Hunger, Terence Davies's Of Time and the City, Duane Hopkins's Better Things and Thomas Clay's Soi Cowboy have talent, promise and quality to spare, then the warm reception given to most of them by French and American critics is almost unprecedented."

"The BFI, in partnership with Granada International and Studio Canal, has just completed an ambitious three-year £1 million programme to restore the first ten films directed by David Lean, from In Which We Serve (1942) to Hobson's Choice (1953)." A report from the BFI's Sonia Genaitay.

So Abdellatif Kechiche's third feature, La Graine et le Mulet, so far known as The Secret of the Grain on the festival circuit, is going to be known as Couscous in the UK. Ginette Vincendeau: "Against the familiar French divide between blockbuster comedies and auteur cinema - recently exacerbated by the runaway box-office success of films such as Les Bronzés 3 (2006) and Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis (Welcome to the Sticks, 2008) - Couscous heralds the possibility (or illusion) of a return to the era of classical cinema, when French film-makers could supposedly combine artistic ambition with popular success."

"Though it received an 'A' certificate in Britain and a 'G' rating in America, [Jacques Demy's] The Pied Piper is a remarkably kindred work to Ken Russell's X-rated The Devils (1971), being in its own way an exposé of historical connivings between political Church and pious State, meant to resonate with the anti-establishment tenor of its times - which it still does," writes Tim Lucas.

For Kate Stables, The Edge of Love's "concentration on the Killicks' romance among the air-raid rubble rather than the Thomases' turbulent and more artistically complex coupling, seems a missed opportunity, one which again unbalances the movie and distances us from its cat's-cradle of relationships." This is the first review I've seen of Edge, the first in a series of forthcoming films involving Dylan Thomas in one way or another and, while expectations weren't high, it's still disheartening.

"Scattershot it might be, but My Winnipeg nudges at the heart of what it means to dream, and how our fantasies of who we are spring from the reality of where we are," writes Ryan Gilbey.

Posted by dwhudson at June 17, 2008 4:43 PM