www.list.co.uk/film Index Film
France, 1959) Jean-Pierre Léaud, Albert Rémy, Claire Maurier. 101min. Still amazingly fresh after all these years, Truffaut’s debut about a 13-year-old Parisian boy’s odyssey through his depressing family life is intensely moving and startlingly perceptive about childhood. A masterpiece. Part of Truffaut/Godard season. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Fermat’s Room (12A) ●●●●● (Luis Piedrahita/ Rodrigo Sopeña, Spain, 2008) Lluís Homar, Alejo Sauras, Federico Luppi. 88min. Four maths geniuses are summoned to a remote location by a mysterious puzzle master who has named himself after the 17th century French number theorist Pierre de Fermat and promises to challenge his guests with a great enigma. Gathered in a sumptuous lounge, the four strangers discover to their horror they have been locked inside a death trap. Imaginatively conceived and smartly executed, this makes for enormously enjoyable viewing. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. La Forza Del Destino (PG) (Nicolas Joel, Italy, 2007) Duccio Dal Monte, Violeta Urmana, Carlo Guelfi. 226min. Verdi’s tragic tale of doomed wartime love is brought to the screen. Filmed live at the PLAYLIST
Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Part of Italy's Great Operas season. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Frozen River (15) ●●●●● (Courtney Hunt, US, 2008) Melissa Leo, Misty Upham, Charlie McDermott. 97min. Leo provides a strong central performance as a desperate American mother who becomes involved in a people-smuggling operation. Partnered by a Mohawk Native American woman, the duo drive across the frozen Saint Lawrence river, hiding illegal immigrants in their boot. Although stylistically lacking, Hunt’s no-frills approach successfully chimes with the film’s bleak subject matter. Glasgow Film Theatre, Glasgow; Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Fugitive Pieces (15) (Jeremy Podeswa, Canada/Greece, 2007) Stephen Dillane, Rade Serbedzija, Rosamund Pike. 106min. This haunting drama opens in wartime Poland with the escape of a young Jewish boy from a Nazi raid. Fugitive Pieces then chronicles the boy’s grown-up struggles as a writer living in Canada, wrestling with the ghosts of his past and their constant intrusions into his present relationships. Glasgow Film Theatre, Glasgow.
“A masterclass in hilarity... rarely seen since the heyday of Laurel and Hardy”
Empire “A delight from start to finish”
Little White Lies
“Charmingly original” Sight & Sound
Film4 Total Film
School’s out for Summer! Whether you’re got entertainment duties or not, it’s an ideal time to set your parental controls to ‘safe’ and set the little mites loose onto the internet to check out the best children’s programmes from the past. Our first choice from the archive of nostalgic fuzziness is How!, an early ITV
show preserved here in the fondly remembered pre-Gaz Top era. Even the most Transformers-addled kid couldn’t help but crack a smile at Fred ‘must have lubrication’ Dinage’s abortive attempt to demonstrate how a clay pot is made (tinyurl.com/n39qvd).
Not all fun has to be so messy: many adults today are still wrestling with the
strong sense of buttoned-down neatness and neighbourhood responsibility instilled by shows like Trumpton, Camberwick Green and Chigley. Our chosen clip shows how Chigley’s workers gather outside their factory after the six o’clock whistle to take part in sedate waltzes in the car park, much as people still do to this day. Created according to government directives about instilling community values on potential revolutionaries, a single viewing should ensure your little ruffian is the good citizen of tomorrow (tinyurl.com/nrv57c). But if junior has been naughty, don’t spare the rod. Instead, spoil the child’s day by sitting the miscreant down in front of The Singing, Ringing Tree, an East German import which would horrify even the most recalcitrant moppet. The enormous goldfish, the misshapen bear, all the elements of a full-on David Lynch-induced acid trip are here (tinyurl.com/rapdwt). You could even put them straight in the naughty chair and let them appreciate ‘how-we-used- to-live’ with the punishing semiotic codes and contrasting musical flamboyance of the original screensaver, The Test Card, an evocative selection of which are recorded here (tinyurl.com/m3vwls).
And if you’re still in any doubt as to why children’s programmes are still important, check out this incisive update of a well-loved classic, reworked to show the influence of US television. The Bad-Ass Wombles delivers a clear warning about how cultural traditions can be dissolved by commercial considerations (tinyurl.com/lb32co). And after that, it’s time for bed, as Zebedee used to say. Goodnight, children everywhere. (Eddie Harrison)
Critics’ Week Cannes
Int’l Film Festival
2008
PG
Contains infrequent mild language
COURAGE MON AMOUR FILMS AND MK2 PRODUCTIONS PRESENT RUMBA
A FILM BY DOMINIQUE ABEL – FIONA GORDON – BRUNO ROMY WITH DOMINIQUE ABEL – FIONA GORDON – PHILIPPE MARTZ
PHOTOGRAPHY CLAIRE CHILDERIC FIRST ASSISTANT CAMERAMAN JEAN-CHRISTOPHE LEFORESTIER EDITING SANDRINE DEEGEN SOUND FRED MEERT – GILLES
LAURENT SOUND MIXING MANU DE BOISSIEU SETS NICOLAS GIRAULT SET DRESSING LAURA COUDERC COSTUMES CLAIRE DUBIEN PRODUCTION MANAGER ELISE BISSON EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS CLAIRE DORNOY – ABEL & GORDON DEVELOPEMENT AND PROMOTION MARINA FESTRE ASSISTANT DIRECTOR PIERRICK VAUTIER SCRIPT SUPERVISOR CECILE BERGES LOCATION MANAGER ISABEL HEBERT PRODUCED BY MARIN KARMITZ – NATHANAEL KARMITZ – CHARLES
GILLIBERT – ABEL & GORDON A COPRODUCTION WITH RTBF (BELGIAN TELEVISION) ASSOCIATE PRODUCER ARLETTE ZYLBERBERG FUNDED BY LE CENTRE DU
CINEMA ET DE L’AUDIOVISUEL DE LA COMMUNAUTE FRANCAISE DE BELGIQUE AND DES TELEDISTRIBUTEURS WALLONS WITH THE PARTICIPATION OF THE
CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA CINEMATOGRAPHIE – CANAL + - TPS STAR – BETV ALSO FUNDED BY THE BELGIAN FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TAX SHELTER – TAX SHELTER ING INVEST DE TAX SHELTER PRODUCTIONS – HAUTE-NORMANDIE REGION – CONSEILS GENERAUX OF LA MANCHE AND LE CALVADOS WRITING
GRANT FROM THE BASSE-NORMANDIE REGION AND THE Shooting Facilitation Offices of BASSE-NORMANDIE and HAUTE-NORMANDIE
© 2008 Courage Mon Amour Films/MK2 Photo © Laurent THURIN-NAL
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