Film
I Mighty like an ox Future Shorts relaunches at the Bongo Club, Edinburgh on 28 June at 7.30pm (films start at 8.30pm). Highlights include Nagi Nada’s Sentimental Journey (pictured) and superb gems from the UK, France, Australia and beyond, Future Shorts is undoubtedly one of the best mini film showcases currently showing in Scotland. Visit www.futureshorts.com for more information.
I Surreal Scottish animation Solo Duets has won the prestigious Jim Poole Scottish Short Film Award 2006. Director Joseph Feltus. a graduate of Edinburgh College of Art said he was ‘overwhelmed' to win the £1,000 award. The Belmont Picturehouse Audience Award was won by Becky Brazil for her short Sweetie. the tale of a family trying to get a bus back home after a day’s shopping.
I Filmhouse bids farewell to Shiona Wood, their Education Officer since 1991, who died on 10 May, with a special screening of one of her favourite films, Mildred Pierce on Sat 1 July at 4pm. Wood was a lover of bright clothing, and those attending are asked to dress brightly. Tickets cost £5, with all proceeds going to St Columba’s Hospice.
WIN INITIAL D: DRIFT RACER ON DVD
From the same creative team who gave us the Infernal Affairs trilogy comes this high-octane motor racing thriller. The film has been a huge box office hit around the world and as of 17 July is available on a double disc DVD from Premier Asia. The List has five copies to give away. To be in with a chance of Winning one simply send an email marked ‘lNITlAL D' to promotions@list.co.uk by 6 July. Usual List rules apply.
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44 THE LIST 22 Jun-6 Jul 2006
NE\.‘. PPINTS
PARIS NOUS APPARTIENT/CELINE AND JULIE GO BOATING
(12A) 141 min sees /(12A) 194mm sees
We're a bit late in the day on reviewing these two welcome re-releases of early films by the French New Wave veteran Jacques Rivette, but better late than never - so here goes. His monochrome debut feature Paris nous Appartient is a detective film, of sorts, which is steeped in a mood of Cold War paranoia, and which atmospherically unfolds in a series of Left Bank cafes, basements and cheap hotel rooms. Betty Schneider’s literature student becomes involved in the bohemian circle of her elder brother’s friends, one of whom has committed suicide: this death insists American novelist Philip Kaufman (Daniel Crohem), himself a political refugee, is the work of a secret terrorist organisation planning world domination. With its labyrinthine plotting and reams of dialogue, Paris nous Appartient is a demanding watch, yet through the device of the play-within-the-film (a rehearsal of Shakespeare’s Pericles), it establishes Rivette's perennial preoccupation with exploring the fluid boundaries between ‘reality’ and artifice. ‘lt’s full of shreds and patches, yet it hangs together’, is how one character describes the theatrical production, a comment equally applicable to Rivette’s own drama.
Ever since it was first released, grand claims have been advanced on behalf of Céline and Julie Go
Reviews
POLITICAL DRAMA THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY (15) 127min 000.
Ken Loach and Scottish SCIGGII‘.‘.TIICF Paul Laveity have caused a storm of controversy (among the reactionary press. which has likened Loach to Leni Riefenstahl) for daring to tell the stOry of the Irish War for Independence. from the Irish pOint of View. Opening in 1920. their thorOLighly admirable Palme d'Or-Winning film charts the militant radicalisation of a yOLing doctor. Damien (Cillian Murphy). who initially reSists but is finally compelled
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Boating, with the eminent critic David Thomson describing it as ‘the most innovative film since Citizen Kane.’ Certainly a brief synopsis can’t do justice to the Alice in Wonderland-style strangeness of its plotting: the key ingredients are the young Parisiennes of its title (wonderfully played by Dominique Labourier and Juliet Berto) who meet and bond one summer, some magic sweets, and a mysterious mansion, whose ghostly occupants appear to be caught up in a tale of romance and murder.
Shifting between casual naturalism and stylised melodrama, this whimsical tribute to the pleasures of imagination, spontaneity and playfulness places the titular characters in the position of spectators and readers, who both invent and head off into unexpected fictions, and who are able, in Freud’s phrase, ‘to recapture the lost laughter of childhood.’ At over three hours this certainly has its longueurs, although the heroines’ reserves of child-like curiosity remain miraculously intact - by the end they’re ready to begin the whole freewheeling process all over again.
(Tom Dawson)
I GFT. G/asgow (Paris nous apbrirtient Oil/y) on Mon .3 and Tue .1 Ju/ on/y. Fi/mhouse. Edinburgh (Celine and Ju/ie Go Boating on/yi on Thu 22 Jun only.
to take up arms after Witnessing one too many brutal beatings being meted out by the Black and Tan mercenaries. who operated Nitli impunity under the auspices of the Ro/al Ulster Constal’xilan/ and the London government. Loach and La‘Jerly follow this shameful tract of British Colonial history to the begmning of the Ciyil War. the horrible legacy of which the people and politicians are still trying to son out.
It's a solid. no-nonsense piece of drama. impresswely acted by professionals and non-professionals alike. which focuses on the human costs of a grand iniustice. in one of many distressmg scenes a mother is