Reviews by Anton Bitel

Order by: Date, A–Z

• 
  The Duel Project (2003)

  Review preview for The Duel Project

  Tartan's decision to release the films as a double-disc set is to be applauded.

  A pair of films - Aragami and 2LDK - shot according to specific rules over one week.
• 
  Dying Breed (2008)

  Review preview for Dying Breed

  Dwyer has taken this cinematically uncharted landscape and, like the convict runners of old, transported to it all manner of unsavoury foreign elements.

  Four friends find out something - or someone - murderous lurks in the rain-slogged Australian bush.
• 
  Eden Lake (2008)

  Review preview for Eden Lake

  Not so very far from where we all live today.

  A young couple spending a romantic weekend in the woods fall foul of an angry group of teenagers.
• 
  Eden Log (2007)

  Review preview for Eden Log

  A dark treat which, far from patronising us with excessive exposition, leaves plenty of room in which the viewer can either wither or flourish.

  A man awakes in a subterranean land, with no idea how he got there, and begins to try to reach the surface.
• 
  Eagle Eye (2008)

  Review preview for Eagle Eye

  Rarely has a film been so serious in its underlying implications and intent, and yet so moronic in its execution.

  Two innocent people find themselves framed in a bizarre military conspiracy.
• 
  Eastern Promises (2007)

  Review preview for Eastern Promises

  This never really congeals into anything beyond a solid genre movie, where viewers have been reared to expect a little more from Cronenberg.

  An idealistic young midwife inadvertently stumbles across a crime syndicate trafficking prostitutes.
• 
  Echo (2019)

  Review preview for Echo

  The disparate vignettes of Echo are held together by strange rhymes and resonances.

  A portrait of modern Icelandic society.
• 
  El Topo (1970)

  Review preview for El Topo

  There is nobody who makes films quite like Jodorowsky's, and El Topo is one of his finest.

  A gunfighter is born again in a strange underground rite and must confront his past. Out to own as part of the six-disc Jodorowsky Collection.
• 
  Everything (2004)

  An unusual relationship between a Soho prostitute and her john.
• 
  Everything Is Illuminated (2005)

  Review preview for Everything Is Illuminated

  Everything Is Illuminated is about storytelling: not only Alex's narration (in hilariously mangled English) of Jonathan's search for his past, but also Alex's retelling of his own life and family history.

  A man heads on an odyssey to the Ukraine, to trace his father's roots.
• 
  The Exorcism Of Emily Rose (2005)

  Review preview for The Exorcism Of Emily Rose

  The very soul of Scott Derrickson's film has been overtaken by bland characters, cheap shocks, kindergarten theology and a pace so plodding that viewers will be left wondering whether it is just Erin's watch that has mysteriously stopped.

  Courtroom drama debates fundamental religious beliefs against a backdrop of imagined horror.
• 
  The Extraordinary Adventures Of Adèle Blanc-Sec (2010)

  Review preview for The Extraordinary Adventures Of Adèle Blanc-Sec

  While there is absurdity aplenty on display here, the film also requires a very high tolerance for the broadest of humour and the slightest of whimsy.

  When a pterodactyl attacks Paris, an intrepid young journalist rises to the challenge.
• 
  Eyes Without A Face (1960)

  Review preview for Eyes Without A Face

  Franju is carefully slicing along the line where the concrete rigours of modern science intersect with the abstractions of youth, beauty and ephemerality.

  A surgeon abducts girls - attempting to transplant their faces on to that of his disfigured daughter.
• 
  End Of Animal (2010)

  Review preview for End Of Animal

  There is no other film in the apocalypse subgenre that quite matches its low-key approach to the unravelling of the human species.

  A young woman seeks the help of a mysterious stranger after the sudden failure of all electricity leaves her stranded in an instantly dog eat dog world.
• 
  Enough Said (2013)

  Review preview for Enough Said

  Refreshing and breezy - but also forgotten almost as soon as it has wafted by.

  A divorced woman learns the new man in her life is her new friend's ex-husband.
• 
  Eraser Children (2009)

  Review preview for Eraser Children

  A film to be admired more for its vast ambitions than for its actual achievements.

  In a futuristic totalitarian state, where human memories are literally converted to fuel, one man becomes convinced he can save the world.
• 
  Ernest And Celestine (2012)

  Review preview for Ernest And Celestine

  Small-town prejudice and the fear of otherness are roundly exposed for their absurdity, but the sensitivity of the artistic disposition and even the importance of good dental care are also sensibly celebrated.

  The unlikely friendship between a gruff bear and an orphaned mouse worries authorities who believe the species shouldn't mix.
• 
  Evil Dead (2013)

  Review preview for Evil Dead

  Alvarez's film goes efficiently through the expected motions without really finding its own identity in relation to either the original film or the contemporary horror landscape.

  A group of friends run into trouble in the woods.
• 
  Exam (2009)

  Review preview for Exam

  Exam drifts from being genuinely enigmatic and moody to derivative, disappointing, even ridiculous.

  Eight strangers are sitting the final exam for a top-level position... but little do they know the stakes are higher than they imagine.
• 
  Exit Humanity (2011)

  Review preview for Exit Humanity

  Exit Humanity's attempt to rewrite history may bring a bit of fresh meat to the table, but it hardly adds up to a bright new future for the zombie genre.

  Humans struggle to survive an outbreak of zombies in the aftermath of the American Civil War.
• 
  Factotum (2005)

  Portrait of the drinker as an artist.
• 
  The Family Friend (2005)

  Review preview for The Family Friend

  The Family Friend is never less than arresting in its manipulation of mood and expectation

  A world of a miserable old man is turned up side down by the arrival of romance.
• 
  Family Guy: It's A Trap (2010)

  Review preview for Family Guy: It's A Trap

  It's A Trap! is unquestionably Family Guy's best-looking Star Wars special (and the first to be made in widescreen), but... there are just too many lazy jokes.

  Last in the trilogy of the animation's Star Wars specials.
• 
  Family Guy: Something, Something, Something Dark Side (2009)

  Review preview for Family Guy: Something, Something, Something Dark Side

  The parody startS to feel as though it is being stretched very thin.

  The Family Guy crew feel the Force.
• 
  Fear (2014)

  Review preview for Fear

  With its digitally heightened colours and shifting frame rates, Fear is a beautifully realised funhouse.

  A woman's mind plays tricks on her.
• 
  Female Convict Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 (1972)

  Review preview for Female Convict Scorpion: Jailhouse 41

  Aesthetically striking and deliriously weird.

  A wrongly convicted prisoner goes on the run in classic arthouse sequel.
• 
  Female Prisoner Scorpion Trilogy (2009)

  Review preview for Female Prisoner Scorpion Trilogy

  This is exploitation cinema of the highest order.

  Box set edition of the trio of women-in-prison movies following a convict's incarceration, escape and revenge.
• 
  Female Yakuza Tale (1973)

  Review preview for Female Yakuza Tale

  With its emphasis on female nudity, this may be cinema more for the devoted voyeur than the casual viewer - but at the same time it puts the male gaze in its place.

  Japanese female fighter, famous for wardrobe malfunctions, takes on a gang of kidnappers.
• 
  Feral (2008)

  Review preview for Feral

  A moody, mysterious tour de force.

  A young man seeks wildness in the woods.
• 
  A Family (2019)

  Review preview for A Family

  Funny, bleak and profound.

  A lonely man seeks emotional refuge in the organising and documenting of family moments using low-grade impersonators. When his fake sister becomes inspired to follow his method, their relationship struggles between the forged and genuine.
• 
  Fando Y Lis (1968)

  Review preview for Fando Y Lis

  Fando y Lis is a genuine curiosity piece - but one that drags more than it grips.

  A wayward young man pushes his paralysed lover along in a cart in search of a mythical land. Out now to own as part of the six-disc Jodorowsky Collection.
• 
  Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

  Review preview for Fantastic Mr. Fox

  A fantastic adaptation that manages to surpass its source material while staying entirely true to its spirit.

  Animated version of Roald Dahl's tale about a wily fox.
• 
  Fantastic Planet (1973)

  Review preview for Fantastic Planet

  Laloux has woven a dense tapestry of allegorical resonances that link the theological to the political to the anthropological.

  Trippy, Seventies animated version of the biblical story of Exodus.
• 
  Fateless (2005)

  Hungarian teenager discovers a certain "happiness" in the Nazi death camps.
• 
  Flightplan (2005)

  Review preview for Flightplan

  This is Foster's film from start to finish.

  Has Jodie lost her mind, or her daughter, on the long haul flight?
• 
  Flushed Away (2006)

  Review preview for Flushed Away

  Exciting, adventurous, and flush with visual and verbal gags

  A pet mouse flushed down a toilet struggles to find his way home, encountering all manner of adventures along the way.
• 
  Footnote (2011)

  Review preview for Footnote

  The initially breezy tone of the comedy gives way to a depiction of calculated cruelty monstrously vicious enough almost to qualify as horror, human enough to count as tragedy and nuanced enough to face viewers with a most unusual kind of dilemma, part in

  Tale of father-son rivalries within the Israeli academic establishment.
• 
  The Fountain (2006)

  Review preview for The Fountain

  Seldom in cinema has eschatology been treated with such intelligence, or inspired such aching awe.

  Three parallel stories, running across more than 1000 years explore the notions of life, love, obssession and loss.
• 
  Friendship's Death (1987)

  Review preview for Friendship's Death

  It is hard not to admire a film that manages, for all the shoestring meagreness of its budget, to be so broad in its ambitions.

  A war correspondent's conversation with an extraterrestrial amid the chaos of Black September.
• 
  The Future (2011)

  Review preview for The Future

  The Future starts off eccentrically enough, before descending into unbridled zaniness, all to the feyly plangent strains of Jon Brion's score.

  The offbeat and funny story of a couple whose modern romance starts to change as they wonder about their future.
• 
  A Fish (2011)

  Review preview for A Fish

  A confident metaphysical mystery which, as a calling card, offers a tantalising glimpse into the future of Korean cinema, while coming with a gimmick of its own.

  When an academic discovers his missing wife has become a shaman, he fears he is beginning to lose his mind.
• 
  Fish Story (2009)

  Review preview for Fish Story

  Fish Story may at first seem almost aleatoric in its structure, but this punkish chronicle of hope enduring in extremis and heroism paid forward turns out to be much more than a mere shaggy dog story.

  A record shop owner insists that one of the records in his store will "save the world".
• 
  The Flowers And The Angry Waves (1964)

  Review preview for The Flowers And The Angry Waves

  Cinematographer Kazue Nagatsuka and production designer Takeo Kimura maximise the potential of the Asakusa setting for claustrophobic effect.

  A man rescues his lover from marrige to a yakuza and the go on the run to Tokyo, only to find it increasingly difficult to escape his violent past.
• 
  The Fog (2005)

  Review preview for The Fog

  Unnecessary and unnecessarily bland remake of what few would in any case regard as one of Carpenter's best films.

  Fog wafts over a small town bringing revenge with it.
• 
  The Fool Of The World And The Flying Ship (1990)

  Review preview for The Fool Of The World And The Flying Ship

  This Emmy-winning fable of piety rewarded makes a virtue of its own simplicity.

  Russian fairytale about a woodcutter who wins the heart of a princess.
• 
  The Fox Family (2006)

  Review preview for The Fox Family

  Everything here is manic and mercurial.

  A vulpine family are hunting human liver with a view to transforming into people themselves.
• 
  The French Collection: Volume 2 - Thrillers (2008)

  Review preview for The French Collection: Volume 2 - Thrillers

  The perfect opportunity to catch up with some of the finest pieces of Gallic cinema from the last few years.

  Three top-notch films from across the Channel, now out to own as a box set.
• 
  Geisha Assassin (2008)

  Review preview for Geisha Assassin

  Episodes of combat unfold like levels in a videogame, with next to no story and only the most perfunctory of dialogue to link them together.

  After a girl witnesses the slaying of her father, she becomes a master of the sword herself in order to avenge his death.
• 
  George A Romero's Land Of The Dead (2005)

  Review preview for George A Romero's Land Of The Dead

  The political content has been ramped up, at the expense of any kind of subtlety.

  The creator of the zombie genre returns with an allegory of Bush's abuses in Iraq.
• 
  Girl With No Mouth (2019)

  Review preview for Girl With No Mouth

  On the one hand, a parable of corporate greed and exploitation, and of society's treatment of the disabled or "deficient", and on the other a story of the way we all reinvent ourselves precisely through story

  Family survivalist adventure in post-apocalyptic Turkey.