Tag: British Cinema
-
The Girl with All the Gifts.
TV director Colm McCarthy has turned his hand to cinema with his debut feature The Girl with All the Gifts. Evidently inspired by Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, and other such Brit-zombie re-imaginings that have gone before it, The Girl with All the Gifts is a violent and sombre affair. We are introduced to a…
-
Adult Life Skills.
Adult Life Skills was not the film I expected it to be. Approaching her 30th Birthday, Anna isn’t coping. She resides in her mother’s garden shed surrounded by the memories of her childhood and adolescence. She spends her time making videos starring her own thumbs, refusing to acknowledge that her life has come to a stand…
-
Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach.
When I was 17 I saw Ken Loach’s Sweet Sixteen. My introduction to cinematic realism, my mind was blown. In the months that followed I devoured Loach’s back catalogue and, for the first time, consciously sought out new and innovative films and genres that I’d never experienced. I was mesmerised by seeing a film where…
-
Mr. Turner.
Mike Leigh is the reason I love cinema. When I was in my late teens I discovered Secrets & Lies, High Hopes, Life is Sweet and Vera Drake. Then in my first year at University I saw Another Year and it sealed the deal. I was reminded of why I’d chosen to study film, why I adored…
-
’71.
Set amidst The Troubles, ’71 is a tale of survival. What begins as a story about a platoon, who are posted to Belfast in an attempt to support the people living on some of the effected streets of Northern Ireland, soon turns into the story of one individual and his struggle to survive on the…
-
The Wicker Man (1973).
It is a rare and beautiful thing when everything that is wrong with a movie is everything you love about it. It usually happens with bad films but Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man is made great by all of its problems. Last year, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of this British horror staple, I attended a…
-
Pride.
Political, hysterical and downright ruddy fun, Pride is brimming over with heart and soul. The film opens and closes at two consecutive London Pride marches. The year in between each event makes up the film’s narrative. When the unions refuse to accept donations from the gay community in support of the miners, the LGSM are…
-
Sightseers.
Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers fell between two very interesting pieces in the rest of his filmography. Kill List combined gritty British realism with terrifying retro horror whilst A Field in England echoed back to the folk horror genre and reminded me of Witchfinder General. Wheatley’s work is astutely British and combines dark comedy with the weird and surreal. Sightseers sits between each film both chronologically…
-
Still Life.
What happens after we die is beyond our knowledge and control. Yet, our behaviour in this world can determine the way in which we leave it. What and who we leave behind is forever un-knowable and it is the sadness of leaving nothing behind us that forms the centre of Uberto Pasolini’s Still Life. Most of…
Hannah McHaffie 