Tag: left-wing

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Features Live Action Movies

The Goldman Case
(Le Procès Goldman)

Director – Cédric Kahn – 2023 – France – Cert. 12a – 115m

****

An acerbic, left-wing revolutionary in the dock protests his innocence on counts of murder he claims he did not commit – true life, courtroom drama is out in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, September 20th

Before this courtroom drama, which is based on an actual trial in 1975 concerning incidents in 1969 and 1970, gets fully under way, and after a brief title card explaining that left wing Jew Pierre Goldman (Arieh Worthalter from Girl, Lukas Dhont, 2018) was imprisoned on four counts of robbery, but insists that he’s not guilty of causing the two deaths in the pharmacy incident, and that a retrial is pending, two of his defence lawyers meet in an office to discuss his decision to drop one of them, M. Kiejman (Arthur Harari from Anatomy of a Fall, Justine Triet, 2023; Onoda: 10, 000 Nights in the Jungle, Arthur Harari, 2021), something neither of the defence lawyers want. Clearly, M. Goldman is a difficult client.

After people arrive in a courtroom thronging with photographers, Goldman is led into the dock, and is immediately met with shouts of “Goldman, innocent” from his supporters.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

The Good Boss
(El Buen Patrón)

Director – Fernando León de Aranoa – 2021 – Spain – Cert. 15 – 116m

***1/2

With a prestigious business competition coming up, a factory boss must keep the judges from stumbling upon his personal and corporate dirty laundry – out in cinemas on Curzon Home Cinema on Friday, July 15th

Any day now, the local committee will descend upon the Blanco Scales factory to see if the business should receive the prize money for an upcoming good business award. No-one knows exactly when they are likely to turn up, though, least of all Blanco (Javier Bardem) himself. So, clearly everything needs to be in good order to impress the judges when they turn up. Which should be fine, because Blanco prides himself in looking out for his work force and the company is one big, benevolent, happy family.

Except that it isn’t, because although Blanco sees it that way, the reality is that he only cares for his workforce insofar as doing so will enhance their productivity. He fires dissatisfied employee Jose (Óscar de la Fuente) who promptly sets up camp outside the factory gates – on land Blanco doesn’t own so he can’t evict him – and proceeds to chant anti-Blanco slogans on a daily basis.… Read the rest

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Documentary Features Live Action Movies

The Coup D’État
Factory
(A Fantástica
Fábrica
De Golpes)

Directors – Victor Fraga, Valnei Nunes – 2021 – UK, Brazil – 105m

****

An exploration of the role played by Brazilian media conglomerate Globo in various right wing Brazilian coup d’états over the decades – UK premiere on Sunday, May 29th 2pm at BFI Southbank followed by a discussion with special guests: Baroness Christine Blower, Jean Wyllys, Marcia Tiburi alongside the filmmakers

For the Brit, there’s something quite unnerving about coming to this documentary about the Brazilian political system and the role played within it by media conglomerate Globo, which controls the country’s most popular TV channel, newspapers and more. We think we have media bias problems here in the UK, but in this country we at least have a certain amount of press regulation enshrined in law and through such ethical bodies as the Press Council and institutions such as public service broadcasting.

That doesn’t appear to be the case in Brazil where, it seems, the media can do pretty much what they like without anyone holding them to account. Which also means that those outside of the country aren’t well-informed as to what goes on inside it since much of the information (or misinformation) about events from within the country is skewed.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

The Duke

Director – Roger Michell – 2020 – UK – Cert. 12a – 96m

**1/2

A man steals Goya’s painting of The Duke Of Wellingon from the National Gallery in 1961… Based on a true story – out to rent on PVoD on Monday, April 11th

1960s Newcastle. Kempton Bunton (Jim Broadbent) wages a one-man war against pensioners paying the licence fee. He removes the BBC coil so that the set will only play ITV. His wife Dorothy (Helen Mirren), a cleaner for the wife of a local councillor, just wants him to behave like every else and try and fit in. Seeing the nation pay £140 000 to stop Goya’s painting of The Duke Of Wellington being sold abroad, he can only think of how much better the money could be spent – how many pensioners’ TV licences it could cover, for example.

Thus, he takes a trip to London to deliver an unsolicited manuscript of a play to the BBC, then lobby both Parliament and the press (The Daily Express) about free licences. All of which endeavours meet with failure. However, a plan to steal The Duke from the National Gallery works and the painting is soon in his back bedroom, where son Jack (Fionn Whitehead from Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan, 2017) bills a false wall in the wardrobe to help him hide it. … Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Detention
(Fanxiao,
返校)

Director – John Hsu – 2019 – Taiwan – 12A – 103m

****

Two Taiwanese students find themselves trapped in their school overnight under that country’s White Terror regime in 1962 – on Shudder (US, Canada) from Monday, February 21st

This is a real oddity: an adaptation of a video game set in a specific historic period of political turmoil. That period is Taiwan’s White Terror (1949-87) under which, among other things, numerous books were banned by the ruling Kuomintang party on the grounds of promoting left-wing or Communist ideas. Merely reading some of these books could provide grounds for execution.

Like the video game, the film is set in the Greenwood High School. It’s 1962 and boy and girl students Fang Ray-shin (Gingle Wang) and Wei Chong-ting (Tseng Jing-Hua) find themselves trapped overnight in the school building after flood waters destroy the access road to the school. What follows isn’t particularly linear in terms of its narrative as school corridors, walkways, rooms and halls are visited by various supernatural beings and become scenes of terror, torture and execution.

The elliptical and sometimes repetitive nature of the storytelling and its component images mean that the film isn’t always that easy to follow, at least not to Western audiences familiar with mainstream Hollywood narrative.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

The Servant

Director – Joseph Losey – 1963 – UK – Cert. 12 – 115m

*****

A highly capable working class manservant slowly takes control of his foppish, upper class master’s life – out in cinemas on Friday, September 10th

Barrett (Dirk Bogarde) enters the curiously unlocked Chelsea house of Tony (James Fox) to interview for the position of manservant. He finds the unkempt Tony asleep in a chair. He seems to fit Tony’s bill and gets the job. Tony got the house very cheap, although it’s in need of repair and decoration. Barrett has any number of useful suggestions, but Tony overrides one or two of them. A servant should know their place, after all.

At a club Tony tells his date Susan (Wendy Craig) that he’s involved in clearing jungle to build three cities. When he brings her back to the house, she finds her attempts at both romantic intimacy and imposing her ideas on his home consistently thwarted by Barrett’s intrusions.

Barrett secures a job for his “sister” Vera (Sarah Miles) as a maid. She is actually his lover. And she sets about seducing Tony. All of this will come to a head, with Tony throwing the pair of them out.… Read the rest