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Art Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Exhibition on Screen
Michelangelo
Love and Death

Director – David Bickerstaff – 2017 – UK – Cert. U – 91m

*****

Sixteenth Century Renaissance sculptor Michelangelo remains one of the greatest artists of all time, yet his overreaching ambition frequently proved his undoing – back out in UK cinemas to tie in with the 550th anniversary of Michelangelo’s birth from Tuesday, May 20th

“From a fountain of mercy… my suffering is born.” These words (voiced by James Faulkner as Michelangelo) accompany images of a present day sculptor (Marco Ambrosini) working away at a piece of marble in his studio. The writings of Vasari (voice: Lawrence Kennedy) take up the story. A boy was born to a noble family in 1475. Art Critic and Author Jonathan Jones places Michelangelo among the greats, like Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, Picasso. He deals with the strangest, darkest and most difficult stuff. He is the original famous artist. He had two biographies written about him in his lifetime, and took great interest in them, helping bring them to fruition. He painted, sculpted, built architecture, wrote poetry, even built military fortifications. This was the time when artists started being regarded as creative geniuses, according to Art Historian Jennifer Sliwka. Vasari referred to Michelangelo and his art in terms of Divinity and then the Divine.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

The Seed
of the Sacred Fig
(Dane-ye
Anjir-e Ma’abed,
دانه‌ی انجیر معابد)

Director – Mohammad Rasoulof – 2024 – Iran, Germany, France – Cert. 15 – 167m

*****

An Iranian state functionary, married with two teenage daughters, is promoted to the position of judge at the same time as the Women, Life, Freedom protests erupt… And then, his gun goes missing at home… – out in UK cinemas on Friday, February 7th

A film so extraordinarily brilliant that it is almost impossible to conceive.

An opening intertitle explains the remarkable life cycle of a tree which grows on one of the southern Iranian islands. Its seeds fall onto the branches of other trees through bird droppings. The seeds then germinate, and their roots move towards the ground. When the roots reach the ground, the sacred fig tree stands on its own feet and its branches strangle the host tree.

2022. The tireless and diligent work of state functionary Iman (Missagh Zareh) has finally been rewarded; he is to be appointed a judge. In a repressive regime like Iran, that’s not a job looked upon favourably by most of the population, so his work gives him a pistol just in case he should need to defend himself or his family. At home, in the Tehran apartment where he lives with his family, he keeps the weapon in a drawer.… Read the rest