Pretty Hill Film Festival

PRETTY HILL FILM FESTIVAL X

FEBRUARY 13– 15, 2009

FILM REVIEWS

The Cows Leave the Farm (Documentary; Canada 1999; 10 minute excerpt)

A look back to where PHFF started – with a gritty short film about the rhythm of rural life, directed by Kirsti Skaret.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Drama; France 2007; 112 minutes)

Jean-Dominique Bauby, a French fashion magazine editor and the author of the international best seller on which “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” is based, suffered an extreme form of confinement - in his early 40s, he suffered a stroke that left him in a rare affliction called “locked-in syndrome.” He retained vision and hearing, and his mind continued to function perfectly, but his body was almost completely paralyzed. He could not move or speak. In the film, a friend, visiting him in the hospital in Berck, a wind-swept seaside town in northern France, reports the latest gossip from the cafes of Paris: “Have you heard? Jean-Dominique is a vegetable.”

“What kind of vegetable?” Jean-Dominique wonders. “A carrot? A pickle?”

Like his condition, the metaphor is cruel, but not altogether unredeemable. As we come to understand in the course of this fierce and lovely film, his existence is not that of a vegetable but rather of a garden, a hothouse of consciousness, memory and ecstatic imagination…[The] …subject…is freedom, the self-willed liberation of a difficult, defiant individual. But Mr. Schnabel (director and himself a painter) is not content simply to state or to dramatize this idea. Rather, he demonstrates his own imaginative freedom in every frame and sequence, dispensing with narrative and expository conventions in favor of a wild, intuitive honesty…Condemned to live in an eternal present, Jean-Dominique is also freed from the tyranny of time, and so the film ranges freely into fantasy, speculation and remembrance, given shape not by a plot but by the ecstatic logic of images and associations. Working with the brilliant cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, he [Julian Schnabel] uses light and color to convey the world sensations from which Jean-Dominique is exiled, but which he appreciated all the more acutely for that reason…And so, curiously enough, a movie about deprivation becomes a celebration of the richness of experience, and a remarkably rich experience in its own right. In his memoir, Mr. Bauby performed a heroic feat of alchemy, turning horror into wisdom, and Mr. Schnabel, following his example and paying tribute to his accomplishment, has turned pity into joy. (A.O. Scott, New York Times, November 30, 2007.)

This film appeared on many critics’ top ten lists for best films of 2007. Julian Schnabel won Best Director at both Cannes and the Golden Globe Awards (where the film itself won best picture). Numerous awards and nominations include Academy Award nominations for Best Director, Screenplay, Cinematography and Editing. (Source: Wikipedia)

The Band’s Visit (Comedy; Israel/Egypt 2007; 87 minutes)

The eight men wear sky-blue uniforms with gold braid on the shoulders. They look like extras in an opera. They dismount from a bus in the middle of nowhere and stand uncertainly on the sidewalk. They are near a highway interchange, leading no doubt to where they’d rather be. Across the street is a small cafe. Regarding them are two bored lay-abouts and a sadly, darkly beautiful woman.

They are a band from Egypt, the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra. Their leader, a severe man with a perpetually dour expression, crosses the street and asks the woman for directions to the Arab Cultural Center. She looks at him as if he stepped off a flying saucer. “Here there is no Arab culture,” she says. “Also, no Israeli culture. Here there is no culture at all.”

They are in the middle of the Israeli desert, having taken the wrong bus to the wrong destination. Another bus will not come until tomorrow. “The Band’s Visit” begins with this premise, which could supply the makings of a comedy, and turns into a quiet, sympathetic film about the loneliness that surrounds us. Oh, and there is some comedy, after all. [And by the time the band gathers to leave the next morning], …we have been provided with an interlude involving two “enemies,” Arabs and Israelis, that show them both as ordinary people with ordinary hopes and lives and disappointments. It has also shown us two souls with rare beauty. (Roger Ebert, March 7, 2008)

The Band's Visit was extremely well received by critics. As of September 23, 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 98% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 99 reviews. Ray Bennett of The Hollywood Reporter named the film the second best of 2007, V.A. Musetto of the New York Post named it the 8th best film of 2007, and both Ella Taylor of LA Weekly and Associated Press David Germain named it the 9th best film of 2007 (Source: Wikipedia)

Modern Times (Comedy; USA 1936; 87 minutes)

The iconic Little Tramp, in his final silent-film appearance, struggles to survive in the modern industrialized world of the Great Depression.
Charlie Chaplin created with MODERN TIMES, one of the most elaborate cinematic critiques of the effects of mass production on 20th century life. With his usual charm and bad luck, Charlie Chaplin's most famous character The Tramp, executes some of his most famous slapstick routines around massive/glorified machines, accidentally ends up in the middle of a communist rally, and falls in love with a street waif played by Chaplin's then real-life partner Paulette Goddard.

In 1972, Roger Ebert wrote: "[Chaplin] had proven his greatness in every possible way; but then at 81 (years of age) he decided to put some of his films back on the market and see how they fared. They are faring very well, you might say. Here in Chicago, they're booked in the Carnegie Theater, where the staff hardly knows what hit it. Modern Times (1936), the first of seven Chaplin programs, was SRO all weekend, and when I saw it on Sunday afternoon, the audience was just about beside itself with delight. I go to a lot of movies, and I can't remember the last time I heard a paying audience actually applaud at the end of a film. But this one did. And the talk afterward in the aisles, in the lobby, and in line at the parking garage was genuinely excited; maybe a lot of these people hadn't seen much Chaplin before; or were simply very happy to find that the passage of time had not diminished the man's special genius." (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, January 25, 1972)

In 2007, The American Film Industry (AFI), in its tenth anniversary ranking of the 100 best U.S. films ever made, ranked Modern Times #78. Chaplin has two other films on this list – City Lights at #11 (which was screened at Pretty Hill VI) and The Gold Rush at #58. (Source: Wikipedia)

My Life as a Dog (Comedy; Sweden 1985; 101 minutes)

It's the eyes. Anton Glanzelius's eyes glint with crazy combinations of intelligence, innocence and diabolical glee. Add pug-nose, spiky hair and shrubby eyebrows and you've got a Swedish imp with enormous screen appeal. Which only adds to "My Life as a Dog," Lasse Halstrom's well-constructed crowd-pleaser.

Glanzelius (we'll just say Anton, okay?) plays Ingemar, a hyperintelligent 12-year-old trying to understand life and death -- and Mom -- in 1950s Sweden. He reads tales of spectacular fatalities with fascination. A grotesque javelin incident, a train crash, the motorcycle stuntman who cleared 30 (of 31) buses -- Ingemar reads this stuff critically. "You have to compare all the time – to get a distance on things," he says simply.
Ingemar is very close to his mother -- but she's suffering from tuberculosis and his intensity drains her flagging strength. The problem is, Ingemar seems to have the Midas touch in reverse. He tears the house up chasing his dog, gets into trouble at school, starts fires and can't seem to hold a glass of milk vertically. He and the mutt are literally aggravating his mother to death…

Director Halstrom has a deft touch. His scenes are adventures -- there is almost always a surprise in the offing: Ingemar, climbing a roof to peep at Berit's modeling session, tumbles through the skylight. A boxing match between Ingemar and Saga turns into a minor sexual awakening. A fight between him and his brother turns into a four-way screaming match with Mother and the dog.

Halstrom reinforces the evocation of spontaneity by encouraging the cast to improvise. The chemistry between the actors, particularly between Anton and Kinnaman, is sometimes magical. (Desson Howe, Washington Post, May 8, 1987)

The film won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1987. It was also nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Director and Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.

Some Like it Hot (Comedy; U.S.A. 1959; 120 minutes)

Because we've grown used to seeing almost every possible subversion and set-up on screen, it's almost impossible to think back to 1959 and realise that, in mixing an affectionate view of transvestism with a light-hearted look at the mob, Billy Wilder (Director and Writer) was being daring in the extreme. And it was because he laced his own script with continuous charm and big fun that he was able to express those ideas in the mainstream.
For those who haven't seen it, "Some Like It Hot" is one of the greatest comedies ever. In a story of increasingly wild absurdity, it follows the antics of two idiot musicians (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon) who, after witnessing the St Valentine's Day Massacre, struggle to escape the gangsters (including a severely unsmiling George Raft) by dressing up in drag and joining an all-girl band. Comic complications aplenty ensue when Tony Curtis - now a pouting girlie - strives to express his desire for Marilyn, while Jack Lemmon - equally high-voiced and simpering - is being pursued by an amorous Joe E Brown, who has one of the funniest - and most radical - final punch-lines in screen comedy.

"Some Like It Hot" is one of those rare movies where all the elements gel all the time. Both Curtis and Lemmon display a real feeling for sexual ambiguity and full-blown silliness, while Marilyn provides a suitably contrasting innocence to the antics of the two rogues. Wilder presents all three with great comic scenes which soar on the back of originality and great timing and embrace both slapstick and super-sharp wit. The desert-island comedy bar none. (Michael Thomson, BBC, 17 October 2000)

“Some Like it Hot” won the Golden Globe for Best Comedy. Marilyn Monroe won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in Musical or Comedy, and Jack Lemmon for Best Actor in Musical or Comedy. The film has been acclaimed worldwide as one of the greatest film comedies ever made. In 2000, AFI ranked it the #1 Comedy Film ever made; it was #14 in the AFI’s 1998 ranking of Best Films. (Source: Wikipedia)

Where Credit Is Due (Documentary; Canada/Guatemala 2008; 24 minutes)

“Against a history of oppression and civil war in Guatemala, three women’s groups of the Kaqchikel Presbytery are using microcredit as a tool for transformation.”

Produced by Sahakarini Inter-World Education and Development Association

Directed by Hans Olson

The Violin – El Violin (Drama; Mexico 2005; 98 minutes)

'THE Violin" opens with a jolt: Bound peasants are brutalized by army troops that are in search of rebels. But after this scene, the black-and-white dazzler from Mexican writer-director Francisco Vargas settles into the sweet, beautifully crafted story of an old man and his violin.

The violin belongs to a farmer named Plutarco, who joins his son and grandson as traveling musicians. The fact that the old man has only one hand doesn't stop him from producing beautiful music; he ties the violin's bow to his stump.

But Plutarco has a secret life: He uses his fields to hide ammunition for the guerrillas who are fighting an oppressive government. When troops bar him from his land, Plutarco strikes up a friendship with the army commander (Dagoberto Gama) in hopes of charming his way back onto his farm and retrieving the desperately needed ammo. This soldier may be brutal, but he appreciates Plutarco's soothing music.

Don Angel Tavira, an octogenarian making his screen debut, gives a memorable performance as the grizzled Plutarco. He is a lifelong musician, despite losing a hand in an accident when he was 13. Tavira's acting is the high point of this suspenseful yet beautiful movie, which - for a while at least - proves that music can soothe the savage breast. (V.A. Musetto, New York Post, December 5, 2007)

Don Angel Tavira won Best Actor Award at Cannes in 2006.

[The film is beautifully shot with crystal clear black and white images that make every frame look as if it deserves pride of place in a photography exhibit. (Mathew Turner, The ViewLondon Review)]

He Died With a Felafel in His Hand (Comedy; Australia 2001; 90 minutes)

Any movie with the word “felafel” in its title deserves some serious attention. No doubt people would have done one of two things when they heard what the film was called. The would have either a) been very interested in what the movie was all about and probably went along to see it, or b) disregarded it as one of those weird, art house movies that would best be left unwatched. Unfortunately for those in the latter category, they missed out on a quirky little comedy that mixes real life situations with unbelievably eccentric characters with aplomb.

[The film is] Based loosely on the novel by John Birmingham, He Died With A Felafel In His Hand …Danny is an unemployed twenty-something who has lived in more than forty shared houses, each with their own different story. The film picks up at house number 47 in Brisbane, where he lives with his best friend, Sam (a female). Struggling to find love, direction and a meaningful job, Danny is really a guy going nowhere. Couple this with some seriously weird but wonderful housemates and you’ve got the recipe for a strange and interesting story. Watch on as Danny moves from house to house, Sam meets an intriguing girl named Anja, Flip gets stoned and the three of them witness some bizarre occurrences that are sure to raise more than the odd chuckle. There’s nothing going on but at the same time everything is happening, all ending up in Sydney where things come loosely together when he dies with a felafel in his hand.

…But the biggest plaudits must go to Noah Taylor who was basically born for this type of role. Surely Lowenstein had him in mind when penning the script as no other Australian could have done it better. Even his pensive look brings out a few giggles here and there which makes his emotional outbursts all the more funny and effective. There’s enough expletives to make Pulp Fiction look like The Sound Of Music but if you don’t mind the old “fire truck” uttered every now and again you won’t be disappointed.

Granted, the movie doesn’t really go anywhere and seems to try a little too hard to mask its emotional effectiveness with some heavy dialogue, but the balance seems to have been struck. You’ll definitely find all the characters at least interesting if not highly entertaining and with some great performances amongst the key players I doubt you’ll look away for a second. Even the all-too-familiar gay guy will have you laughing just because of the absurdity of the situation. And that’s what this movie is; absurd, yet very effective. (Pete Roberts, DVD Active)

Baby Boots (Canada 2008; 15 minutes)

Directed by Hans Olson

Bridge to Nowhere (Canada 2009; 14 minutes)

Directed by Tristin Deveau and Shawn Christenson

Spirit of the Beehive (Drama; Spain 1973; 98 minutes)

Hailed as one of the landmark films in Spanish cinema, Victor Erice's Spirit of the Beehive captures the wonders and terrors of childhood with piercing, heartfelt beauty and an authentic sense of mystery. This poetic and dreamlike narrative, set in an isolated Castilian village during the dictatorship of Franco, works on almost a subconscious level as Erice masterfully portrays a young girl's first intimations of mortality, which emerge after a screening of the 1931 film Frankenstein. Although some critics interpret Spirit of the Beehive as a political allegory about life under Franco—and it certainly lends itself to that reading—Erice ultimately seems more interested in exploring the psychological, rather than the political, in this spellbinding classic ...

Hinting only obliquely at the impact of Franco's fascist regime on everyday life, Spirit of the Beehive envelops you in the lives of two sisters, Ana (Ana Torrent) and Isabel (Isabel Telleria), who live with their wealthy, preoccupied parents in the village of Hoyuelos, circa 1940. During a screening of Frankenstein, Ana is particularly struck by the famous scene where Boris Karloff's monster accidentally kills a little girl. Isabel only fuels Ana's sudden obsession with death and the afterlife by concocting an elaborate bedtime story about a "spirit" who supposedly lives in an abandoned farmhouse nearby (hence, the film's title). As their parents, Fernando (Fernando Fernan Gomez) and Teresa (Teresa Gimpera), drift farther and farther apart, lost in their own obsessions (he with his glass beehive, she with mourning the absence of a loved one), Ana becomes intent on meeting this elusive "spirit." Her quest takes an unexpected turn, however, when she stumbles upon an injured fugitive (Juan Margallo) who's taken refuge in the abandoned farmhouse.

Such a straightforward synopsis of Spirit of the Beehive cannot convey the enigmatic, fairytale-like tone of Erice's cryptically rendered film (there's little dialogue), which leaves much unexplained and open-ended. In ravishing imagery that veers from the austere to the magical, Erice and cinematographer Luis Cuadrado capture a child's view of the world, where reality and fantasy intermingle. It's a world of sunny innocence and nightmarish cruelty—Isabel plays an especially mean practical joke on Ana—where every day brings a different discovery. And in the expressive, soulful gaze of the remarkable Torrent (Cria), Erice finds the perfect embodiment of childhood innocence dimmed, but not entirely darkened.

While the film's slow, methodical pace and absence of resolution divided critics and audiences upon release, Spirit of the Beehive is now embraced as a classic of Spanish cinema. British film critic Derek Malcolm of The Guardian named it one of the 10 best films ever made in his list for the 2002 Sight and Sound critics' poll. Sadly, Erice has only made two films in the 33 years since Spirit of the Beehive premiered at the San Sebastian Film Festival. (Tim Knight, www.reel.com)

To Kill a Mockingbird (Drama; USA 1962; 129 minutes)

An astonishing motion picture by any standards, To Kill a Mockingbird only failed to win a Best Picture Oscar because it was in the running against Lawrence of Arabia… The movie, made in 1962, is based on the 1960 semi-autobiographical novel by Harper Lee (the only book she would publish and winner of the Pulitzer Prize).

The movie takes place in the small Alabama town of Maycomb over the span of a little more than a year, bounded by two summers. Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) is an upright lawyer with unimpeachable ethics. If there were more attorneys like him, the Law could indeed be considered a noble profession. A widower, Atticus has the responsibility of caring for his two children - his 10 year-old son, Jem (Phillip Alford), and his six year-old daughter, Scout (Mary Badham). Jem and Scout are typical children, spending their time going to school and playing outside. And they have a weird fascination with the Radley house down the street, where the mysterious Boo Radley (Robert Duvall) lives. Boo is the local Bogeyman, a figure who never emerges from his house, but about whom a monstrous legend has developed. As with all such fearful tales, the stories about Boo equally frighten and attract Jem and Scout.

When Atticus takes the case of Tom Robinson (Brock Peters), a black man wrongfully accused of raping a white woman, some of the townsfolk turn against him, especially Bob Ewell (James Anderson), the racist father of the so-called victim…

To Kill a Mockingbird presents its story through the eyes of children, and one child in particular - Scout (who is the stand-in for writer Lee). Director Robert Mulligan is unwavering throughout the course of this movie to ensure that the point-of-view remains constant. The actions of all the characters are filtered through the eyes of Jem and Scout. We see Atticus as both a noble lawyer and a loving father. Bob Ewell is a monster. Tom Robinson is a tragic figure. And Boo Radley is the Bogeyman - the personification of mystery that hangs thick in the air on summer nights.

One of To Kill a Mockingbird's strengths is the powerful sense of time and place it develops. Ironically, for a movie that so forcefully evokes a setting, this was not filmed on-location. Before To Kill a Mockingbird went into production, Mulligan and producer Alan Pakula took a team to Lee's hometown of Monroeville, but found it unsuitable for filming. Modernization had crowed out the quaintness of 30 years prior, rending the town unable to represent itself in the 1930s. So, Mulligan and Pakula had a "replica" of Monroeville constructed on a Universal Pictures backlot. The children's world - a simple street lined by several houses - is the result of movie-making magic. And, when Lee saw it, she commented upon how perfect the illusion was.

Russell Harlan's black-and-white cinematography is evocative, transporting us to the depression-era deep South. We don't just observe Maycomb from a distance. We feel it. We are there. The opening voiceover monologue establishes the time and place in a tangible manner that the film never loses. And the immediacy of the setting enhances the believability of the characters. It is with these words that To Kill a Mockingbird begins: "Maycomb was a tired old town, even in 1932, when I first knew it. Somehow, it was hotter then. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frosting from sweating and sweet talcum. The day was 24 hours long, but seemed longer. There's no hurry, for there's nowhere to go and nothing to buy, and no money to buy it with, although Maycomb county has recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself. That summer, I was six years old." Those words alone cast a spell. Coupled with the images, they function as a time machine.

The "big" star is Gregory Peck, who, at the time, was in the prime of his career. The role earned him his only Best Actor Oscar…
Arguably, the two most important members of the cast are Mary Badham and Phillip Alford, who play Scout and Jem. Despite being non-professionals with no previous experience, these two are excellent and unaffected in their performances. There is none of the awkwardness that is often associated with younger actors (especially those who are being exposed for the first time to movie cameras). The film's success rests in large part upon their effectiveness and ability to identify with their characters.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a faithful adaptation of one of the 20th century's most important American works of literature. It is also a masterpiece in its own right. This is one of those rare productions where everything is in place - a superior script, a perfect cast, and a director who has a clear vision and achieves what he sets out to do. To Kill a Mockingbird is universally recognized as a classic, and the label is well deserved. (James Berardinelli, ReelViews Movie Review)

Winner of three Oscars including Best Actor for Gregory Peck, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration-Black and White, and Best Writing/Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium. It was nominated for five more Oscars including Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Mary Badham, the first-time actress who played Scout. (Source: Wikipedia)

Radiant City (Documentary; Canada 2006; 85 minutes)

Something’s happening on the edge of town.

There’s a desperate housewife in the parking lot, a musical chorus line mowing the lawn — and a loaded gun in the upstairs closet.

Welcome to Radiant City,an entertaining and startling new film on 21st century suburbanites.

Gary Burns, Canada’s king of surreal comedy, joins journalist Jim Brown on an outing to the burbs. Venturing into territory both familiar and foreign, they turn the documentary genre inside out, crafting a vivid account of life in The Late Suburban Age.

Sprawl is eating the planet. Across the continent the landscape is being levelled — blasted clean of distinctive features and overlaid with zombie monoculture. Politicians call it growth. Developers call it business. The Moss family call it home.

While Evan Moss zones out in commuter traffic, Ann boils over in her dream kitchen and the kids play sinister games amidst the fresh foundations of monster houses.

A chorus of cultural prophets provide insight on the spectacle. James Howard Kunstler, author of The Geography of Nowhere, rails against the brutalizing aesthetic of strip malls. Philosopher Joseph Heath fears the soul-eating burbs but admits they offer good value for money. And urban planner Beverly Sandalack dares to ask, Why can’t we walk anywhere anymore?

The dark era of resource scarcity is looming fast, threatening to strike suburbia “off the menu of history.” But like a juggernaut, it sails intractably forward, flattening all in its path.

Burns and Brown rummage through a toybox of cultural references, from Jane Jacobs to The Sopranos, to create a provocative reflection on why we live the way we do. Riffing off sitcoms andreality TV, they play fast and loose with a range of cinematic devices to consider what happenswhen cities get sick and mutate.

Cinematographer Patrick McLaughlin transforms drab suburbia into great painterly cloudscapes, mesmerizing rivers of traffic and eerie tableaux of dystopia while the soundtrack features songs from Joey Santiago of The Pixies.

Something’s happening on the edge of town. They call it Radiant City. Welcome to the
neighbourhood.

For more information on this film, visit www.radiantcitymovie.com

Screening courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada.

The Edge of Heaven (Drama; Germany/Turkey 2007; 122 minutes)

The Turkish-German director Fatih Akin's new film has been given a poetic English title for its UK release, but the German original, Auf der Anderen Seite, "On the Other Side", is better. This is an intriguing, complex, beautifully acted and directed piece of work, partly a realist drama of elaborate coincidences, near-misses and near-hits, further tangled with shifts in the timeline - and partly an almost dreamlike meditation with visual symmetries and narrative rhymes.

It is about the tension between Germany and Turkey, to whom postwar West Germany opened its doors for "guest-worker" labourers, thereby getting an economic boost but creating for itself an unacknowledged quasi-imperial legacy of guilt and cultural division. And it is about the gulf between the first- and second-generation Turkish-Germans, conflicted about their identity and their relation with the old country, itself conflicted as it prepares to join the European Union.

At the movie's centre is Nejat (Baki Davrak), a second-generation Turk who has attained what might be the greatest distinction Germany has to offer: he is a university professor, lecturing on Goethe. His rascally old father, Ali (Tuncel Kurtiz), also in Germany, has offered cohabitation rights to the Turkish prostitute Yeter (Nursel Köse) for whom he is a regular, and who is only too eager to escape the bullying Muslim activists who patrol the red-light district - but doesn't see Ali's yet unrevealed darker side. Having established this fraught, tense family relationship, Akin spins the narrative thread off sideways to investigate the situation of Yeter's fugitive daughter Ayten (Nurgül Yesilçay) and her relationship with an idealist young German, Lotte (Patrycia Ziolkowska) who between them are reviving the spirit of Baader-Meinhof for a new generation. Lotte's mother is Susanne, played by Hanna Schygulla, a casting decision that is partly a kind of ancestor-worship of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, an acknowledged inspiration for Akin.

It is a glitteringly confident narrative pattern, gesturing at the globalised, historical forces that govern individual lives…

This is perhaps not a film for everyone; it does need a leap of faith, though not a very big leap. What I think is beyond doubt is that Akin - already the winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin film festival for his 2004 film Head-On - is a director who has found a real voice. He tackles big ideas, big themes, in the service of which he creates believable human beings and elicits tremendous performances from his actors. It is bold and exhilarating film-making. (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian, 22 February 2008)