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Edinburgh International Film Festival · 2011

Edinburgh International Film Festival 2011

Perspectives

Programme

17 films · 6 reviews

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The Adventures of Gerard

British adventure comedy based on comic short stories The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard by Arthur Conan Doyle.

(Country: UK, Switzerland, Italy; Year: 1969; Director: Jerzy Skolimowski; Writer: Arthur Conan Doyle, H.A.L. Craig, Gene Gutowski, Jerzy Skolimowski; Stars: Peter McEnery, Claudia Cardinale, Eli Wallach, Jack Hawkins)

All That Heaven Allows

Review preview for All That Heaven Allows

A paean to the American dream of self-determination that many Americans have never learnt how to aspire to.

Chris · 5 out of 5
A widow falls in love with a handsome young gardener and faces social vilification as a result.

(Country: US; Year: 1955; Director: Douglas Sirk; Writer: Peg Fenwick, Edna L. Lee, Harry Lee; Stars: Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Agnes Moorehead, Conrad Nagel, Virginia Grey, Gloria Talbott)

Full review

American Torso (Amerikai anzix)

EIFF 2011 guest creator, Béla Tarr described Hungarian filmmaker Gàbor Bódy as 'one of the highest mountains in Hungarian film history'. This is the postmodern filmmaker at his most experimental.

(Country: Hungary; Year: 1975; Director: Gábor Bódy; Writer: Ambrose Bierce, Gábor Bódy, Sándor Csoóri, János Fiala, Gyula Kúné, Karl Marx, László Teleki, Walt Whitman, László Árvay; Stars: Sándo Csutoros, György Cserhalmi, András Fekete)

The Angelic Conversation

Dame Judi Dench narrates and John Balance of Coil provides the score for this beautiful, lyrical homage to homosexual love.

(Country: UK; Year: 1987; Director: Derek Jarman; Writer: William Shakespeare; Stars: Judi Dench, Paul Reynolds, Phillip Williams)

Blue

Jarman's final work, which features an unchanging blue screen and collaged soundscape.

(Country: UK; Year: 1993; Director: Derek Jarman; Writer: Derek Jarman; Stars: John Quentin, Nigel Terry, Derek Jarman, Tilda Swinton)

Deep End

Psychosexual thriller, starring Jane Asher, showing the darker side to swinging London.

(Country: Germany, United States of America; Year: 1970; Director: Jerzy Skolimowski; Writer: Jerzy Skolimowski, Jerzy Gruza, Boleslaw Sulik; Stars: Jane Asher, John Moulder Brown, Diana Dors)

The Last Of England

Jarman's impassioned comment on life in Thatcher's Britain.

(Country: UK, Germany; Year: 1988; Director: Derek Jarman; Writer: Derek Jarman; Stars: Tilda Swinton, Nigel Terry, Jonathan Phillips, Spencer Leigh)

Mysterious Object at Noon (Dokfa nai meuman)

The fugue-like first feature from the celebrated Thai indie, which set out the stall of this most inspiring film maverick.

(Country: Thailand; Year: 2000; Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul; Stars: Duangja Hiransri, Kongkeirt Komsiri, Saisiri Xoomsai, Somsri Pinyopol)

Passion (Szenvedély)

An adaptation of James M. Cains' classic The Postman Always Rings Twice, set in Hungary in the 1930s.

(Country: Hungary; Year: 1998; Director: György Fehér; Stars: Ildikó Bánsági, Djoko Rosic, János Derzsi, István Lénárt)

The Round-Up (Szegénylegények)

An intense exploration of a dark period of Hungarian history - the detention of political dissidents challenging the 19th century totalitarian Austrian regime.

(Country: Hungary; Year: 1966; Director: Miklós Jancsó; Stars: János Görbe, Zoltán Latinovits, Tibor Molnár)

Salvador

Journalists become embroiled in the politics of Civil War.

(Country: UK, US; Year: 1986; Director: Oliver Stone; Writer: Oliver Stone, Rick Boyle; Stars: James Woods, James Belushi, Michael Murphy, John Savage, Elpidia Carrillo, Tony Plana, Colby Chester, Cynthia Gibb, Will MacMillan, Valerie Wildman, José Carlos Ruiz, Jorge Luke, Juan Fernández, Salvador Sánchez, Rosario Zúñiga)

The Shout

Skolimowski's acclaimed, garlanded British adaptation of a Robert Graves' short story, is his most unabashedly surreal work.

(Country: UK; Year: 1978; Director: Jerzy Skolimowski; Writer: Robert Graves, Michael Austin, Jerzy Skolimowski; Stars: Alan Bates, John Hurt, Susannah York)

The Saddest Music In The World

Review preview for The Saddest Music In The World

Hilarious throughout.

Andrea Mullaney · 4.5 out of 5
Depression-era melodrama where beer baroness runs competition to discover the saddest music in the world.

(Country: Canada; Year: 2003; Director: Guy Maddin; Writer: Guy Maddin, Georges Toles. Based on the screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro; Stars: Mark McKinney, Isabella Rossellini, Maria de Medeiros, David Fox, Ross McMillan) , Trailer

Full review

Stranger Than Paradise

Review preview for Stranger Than Paradise

A complex of narrative symmetry and existential ennui pointing to something far more resonant than the sum of its parts.

Anton Bitel · 4.5 out of 5
An unlikely trio head for Florida in search of paradise.

(Country: US, West Germany; Year: 1984; Director: Jim Jarmusch; Writer: Jim Jarmusch; Stars: John Lurie, Eszter Balint, Richard Edson, Cecillia Stark, Danny Rosen, Rammellzee, Tom DiCillo, Richard Boes, Rockets Redglare, Harvey Perr, Brian J. Burchill, Sara Driver, Paul Sloane)

Full review

Whisky Galore! (Tight Little Island)

Review preview for Whisky Galore!

Commentators have dismissed Mackendrick's comedy about the islanders of Todday as stereotypical, patronising and tame, but it is outrageously funny and highly subversive.

Brian Pendreigh · 4 out of 5
Classic Ealing comedy where a group of Scottish islanders rescue and hide a shipwrecked cargo of whisky.

(Country: UK,; Year: 1949; Director: Alexander Mackendrick; Writer: Compton MacKenzie, Angus MacPhail, based on the novel by Compton MacKenzie; Stars: Basil Radford, Catherine Lacey, Bruce Seton, Joan Greenwood, Wylie Watson, Gabrielle Blunt, Gordon Jackson, Jean Cadell, James Robertson Justice, Morland Graham, John Gregson, James Woodburn, James Anderson, Jameson Clark, Duncan Macrae, Mary MacNeil, Nor)

Full review

You Are Not I

Review preview for You Are Not I

Exquisite.

Anne-Katrin Titze · 4 out of 5
The director's long-lost debut, described by Cahiers du Cinéma as one of the best made movies of the 1980s.

(Country: United States of America; Year: 1981; Director: Sara Driver; Writer: Sara Driver, Jim Jarmusch, based on the story by Paul Bowles; Stars: Suzanne Fletcher, Evelyn Smith, Luc Sante)

Full review See: New York Film Festival Diary - On cinematic and fairytale influences. , New York Film Festival: Week One Photo Gallery