flaws. the confidently shot live and Become is a heartfelt and often resonant work. offering a persuasive account of an immigrants experiences and a strong sense of the religious and political tensions and conflicts Within Wider Israeli society. (Tom Dawson)
I Cinewor/d Renfrew Street. Glasgow from Fri 30 Dec.
FAMII Y’NFW PRINT IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (U) 130min «u
If you're filled With humbuggery. then Frank Capra's optimistic drama is the ideal antidote. Its simple messages - that each indiVidual life is significant. that human nature is inherently good
and that Virtue is rewarded ‘ WlII till you '
With the true spirit of the season. James Stewart is perfectly cast as Everyman hero George Bailey. a man
who sacrificed his dreams to save his home town of Bedford Falls and now faces finanCIal ruin and Jail. On the brink of SLiICIde. Bailey is 'saved' by trainee angel Clarence (Henry Travers) and. in a Dickensian twist, is shown what Bedford Falls would be like had he never been born. The true genius of this pOignant tale is its power to transform misanthropy and Cynicism. if only temporarily, into a belief that life is indeed wonderful. It's quite simply the best Christmas film ever made.
(Kirsty Knaggs)
I GET. Glasgow from Thu 75 Sat 94 Dec; Cameo. Edinburgh from Fri 23--Thu 29 Dec.
COMEDY THE FAMILY STONE (PG) 103min 0
Another festive sitcom in the Meet the Fockers/Survrvrng Christmas line, The Family Stone depicts the struggle of the liberal Stones (Craig T Nelson and Diane Keaton) to embrace prospective daughter in-law Meredith (Sarah Jessica Parker). Uptight Meredith is supposedly getting hitched to son Everett (Dermot Mulroney). but soon ends up in the bed of his laid back brother (I uke Wilson. taking on a sketchy role that his real life brother Owen Wisely ducked out of). Worryingly magnified on the big
~ ,t~ -1. .
1’
DRAMA/MYSTERY INNOCENCE (15 121 min one
screen. Parker's haggard presence kills this family gathering stone dead. Although the script suggests Meredith is ‘pretty' and amazing, Parker's whipcord neck muscles and translucent face suggest embalming fluid rather than passion runs through her veins. And although writer director Thomas Be/iicha eventually throws in a dose of cancer and Clare Danes as Meredith's sister Julie to brighten things up. he's a day too late and a dollar short on both counts. Unless you crave such pleasures as heavy stereotyping in the form of a gay deaf brother and a crass sequence in which Keaton displays her mastectomy scar while Judy Garland sings 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", the Family Stone is one social gathering well worth avoiding. (Eddie Harrison) I General release from Fri l6 Dec.
it
splashing about in shallow water somehow recall the fetishistic grainy photographs of Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Arletty’s final dance in Carne's Les Enfant du
Ribbons, tutus and ballet shoes are what little girls made of, or so it seems for six-year-old Iris (Zoe Auclair) when she arrives at a forest-enclosed girls’ boarding school in a coffin. She becomes infatuated with 12-year-old Bianca (Berangare Haubruge) who disappears each evening and returns in the morning. The girls spend most of their days studying ballet and are encouraged by the mysterious teachers to find happiness in obedience. Parents never visit. The world beyond the forest’s ivy-covered walls exists like the feature of a dream.
Something of this lovely film's pedigree is hinted at in the final title credit ‘for Gaspar’ (Noe, director of Irreversible). Writer/director Lucile Hadzihalilovic (Noe’s partner in the real world) employs Benoit Debie, the cinematographer of Irreversible, for this remarkable study of young girls on the cusp of adolescence, and imbues every aspect of the film with a dreamy, meditative veneer. The images of these white, starched uniformed pre-teen nymphs dancing, cartwheeling and
Paradis and the erotic imagery of David Hamilton’s early feature films, particularly Bilitis. In other parts of the film Hadzihalilovic and Debie reference Argento and Lynch, while always hinting at something that is powered by its own very peculiar, slow building perversity. There is indeed so much going on here that it undoubtedly warrants repeated viewing. From the chilled, opaque dialogue to the fairytale sensibility, this is about as odd and charming as anything I have seen all year.
But what exactly is the film about? The girls may be in a purgatory of sorts, a resting place between life and death. Perhaps not. At times one feels the film wants to concur with the great feminist writer Olive Schreiner that ‘girls' boarding schools are called finishing schools because they finish everything but imbecility and weakness, which they cultivate’. But then one senses for a filmmaker of this potential brilliance that would be too simple. Innocence, as it always should be, is deeply and profoundly recommended. (Paul Dale)
I Fl/mhouse. Edinburgh from Fri 30 Dec.
Film
REVIEW OF THE YEAR
Film editor Paul Dale picks his highlights of 2005
I The world is full of morons. There’s your standard moron who subscribes to the viewpoint that any woman in a short skirt is just asking for it. And then there’s your more benign moron who believes that having an opinion on the latest Harry Potter book or film qualifies them as a bona fida arts impresario. As a rule, these walking vacants are created by our decrepit educational systems and cultural monopolies put in place by those who distribute, manage, exhibit or generally pimp something or someone on any given arts scene. The only way to fight such cultural constipation is to declare independence for the weird and the cult on an island far far away — a place of passion, love and mild insanity.
I If t was to take any films from 2005 to that island I would certainly take Jonathan Caouette's raw autobiographical documentary Tarnation, the new print of Peter Watkins‘ 1971 documentary satire Punishment Park. llya Khrianovsky's mad and brutal tale of village idiots and vodka. 4. and Carlos Reygadas' unforgettable Battle in Heaven. Then, sat on that moonlit beach with only a projector and a white sheet for company. I would remind myself what consummate filmmaking is by watching Jacques Audiard's breathtakingly accomplished thriller The Beat that my Heart Skipped. Cronenberg's A History of Violence and Sukorov's Hirohito drama The Sun.
I Finally, it would be time for poetry and performance, so I would reel up Sally Potter’s brilliant cross-cultural romance in verse, Yes, and Miranda July’s potty suburban performance piece, Me and You and Everyone We Know. Two women filmmakers in one round-up list: it must have been a better year at the flicks than I can remember.
151 Dec 9005» 51 Jan .9000 THE LIST 59