Tag: death sentence

The Stranger
(L’Étranger)
(2025)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 10 April 2026
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(L’Étranger)
(2025)
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Director – François Ozon – 2025 – France – Cert. 15 – 120m

*****

A Frenchman living in French Algiers with an attitude of detachment is arrested following a violent incident with an Arab – adaptation of Albert Camus’ existentialist novella is in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, April 10th

Albert Camus’ 1942 novella is a character study of a non-conformist to the widely held ideals of the day. Ozon’s film adaptation roughly follows its template, making some subtle changes which alter its overall stance and meaning.

The following synopsis contains spoilers, but, to be honest, given that this is an adaption of a significant work of French literature, and that you’ll get just as much if not more out of it if you read the book beforehand, I’m not convinced that knowing the plot in advance is a bad thing.

The novella has a two-part structure. First, it follows the life of its main, French Algiers-based protagonist Meursault from his receiving news of his mother’s death and taking time off work to attend her funeral, through his embarking on a relationship with the besotted Maria, to his involvement with his friend the local pimp Raymond Sintès and Meursault’s fatal shooting of an Arab, who has been following Raymond with murderous intent after Raymond mistreated his sister.… Read the rest

Tags absurdist world view, adaptation, Albert Camus, apartment building, Arab, Arab name, Arabic, Arabic language, argument, arrest, beats his dog, Benjamin Voisin, black and white, boss, Camus, care home, chaplain, character study, crime, criminal, cruelty to animals, deadpan, death sentence, death sentence of, Denis Lavant, detachment, dog-beating, elderly neighbour, existentialism, existentialist, France, François Ozon, French Algiers, French colonial racism, friend, funeral, girlfriend, going through the motions, grave, headstone, human dignity, imprisonment, Joël Cudennec, Killing an Arab, knife, L'Étranger, lack of ambition, low life, mannered performance, marry, misogyny, moral scruples, mother’s death, mourner, murderous intent, non-conformist, novella, period newsreel, Pierre Lottin, pimp, police, prison, prison chaplain, promotion, punishment, racism, Rebecca Marder, relationship, revisionist, sex scenes, shooting, spiritual matters, testify, The Stranger, time off work, trial, unpleasant sort, violent incident, wronged sister, wronged woman

Features Live Action Movies

From Hilde, With Love
(In Liebe, Eure Hilde)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 27 June 2025
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(In Liebe, Eure Hilde)
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Director – Andreas Dresen – 2024 – Germany – Cert. 15 – 125m

***

A young, pregnant German woman involved with a group of radicals trying to undermine the Nazi regime is arrested and put on trial with a possible death sentence – out in UK cinemas accompanied by the Kate Bush short Little Shrew (Snowflake) on Friday, June 27th

Its opening, pre-credits moments of a German mother and bespectacled, pregnant adult daughter picking strawberries in the garden belies what is to follow, but that sense of calm doesn’t last long as two barely seen black cars pull up in the lane. The pregnant woman packs a suitcase before the two men accompany her out to the car. How long will it take, she asks. That depends on you, comes the reply.

In the lift, the big, burly man asks after her pregnancy. It seems his wife, too, is expecting. When she is questioned in the interrogation room, she is asked about her husband’s radio equipment, on the table in front of her in a suitcase. She makes up stories about her innocence and ignorance, but they (including, when we finally see him, the man from the lift) run rings round her.… Read the rest

Tags Andreas Dresen, arrest, authorities, birth, boat, cell, child born in prison, civilian life, complicit, death sentence, expecting, fear, female guard, fool around, From Hilde With Love, garden, German, Germany, gruel, handheld camera, Hans-Christian Hegewald, health, husbands and wives, idyllic afternoon, ignorance, innocence, interrogation, lift, Lisa Hrdina, Lisa Wagner, Liv Lisa Fries, maternal exercises, Nazi, Nazi regime, pack a suitcase, parachutist, plead a case, plead your case, plotting, plotting against the Nazis, post, pregnancy, pregnant, prison, prison cell, prison hospital, prison hospital birth sequence, questioned, radicals, radio equipment, radio messages, riverbank, ruthless, shot in one take, signaller, spectacles, spy, stimulate milk production, strawberries, strip-search, suitcase, the Front, transcribe, trial, unborn child, women friends, women’s health

Features Live Action Movies

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

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 7 February 2025
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of the Sacred Fig
(Dane-ye
Anjir-e Ma’abed,
دانه‌ی انجیر معابد)
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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 on Blu-ray and DVD from Monday, June 9th 2025

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

Tags 2022, Academy Award, Academy Awards, Academy Awards 2024-25, Academy Awards 2025, Amineh Arani, authorities, beaten, behave, best behaviour, bestie, career and promotion, case files, cat and mouse, cells, college, corridor, death sentence, drawer, family night out, family row, France, Germany, germination, home, hometown, husbands and wives, imprisonment, incarceration, interrogator city and country, Iran, Islam, Islamist, judge, keep women down, labyrinth, life cycle, Mahsa Rostami, Missagh Zareh, missing gun, Mohammad Rasoulof, mother, Niousha Akhshi, non-conformism, Oscar, Oscar nominations, Oscars, Oscars 2024-25, Oscars 2025, overwork, parents and children, parents and daughters, parents and teenagers, patriarchy, pistol, promotion, protests, radical and conservative, regime, repression, rooftop, roots, rubber stamp, scrupulous, Setareh Maleki, sisters, social climber, social divide, Soheila Golestani, state functionary, status quo, strangulation, strict Islamic dress codes, teenage angst, Tehran, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, totalitarian, tower, tree, Women Life Freedom, workload, wound

Animation Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Free Chol Soo Lee

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 19 August 2022
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Directors – Julia Ha, Eugene Yi – 2022 – US – Cert. 12a – 83m

****

Imprisoned for a murder he did not commit, Korean American Chol Soo Lee became a figurehead for a protest movement, something he felt unable to live up to – out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 19th

In San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1973, Korean loner Chol Soo Lee was arrested and subsequently convicted for a gang murder. While it’s true he had foolishly borrowed a gun off a work colleague a few days previously and accidentally discharged it into his apartment wall giving himself a police record, he was not the murderer. He was identified on the flimsiest of premises by unreliable witnesses, possibly not helped by white cops who wanted to convict a felon for the crime and consign the case to history.

On what was to be his last journey through the outside world before many years in prison, he heard the Tower of Power song “You’re still a young man” on a car radio crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. It resonated. As the years passed in prison, his mother abandoned him. He had fallen for a Japanese American girl he’d met Jean Ranko who subsequently told him in a letter that she had no romantic interest in him.… Read the rest