After completing Gran Casino, Luis Buñuel began work on a screenplay with the Spanish poet Juan Larrea called Ilegible Hijo de Fluta (The Illegible Son of the Flute). Óscar Dancigers had a lot of trouble financing the project for them, so Buñuel agreed to direct a ‘popular’ film (aptly named The Great Madcap). Soiled by making such an “impossibly banal” film, Buñuel convinced Óscar […]
Category Archives: Film Reviews
Los Olvidados: Bunuel introduces us to the real street urchins Dickens never knew.
posted by lisathatcher
Closely Watched Trains: The Czech New Wave consistently ahead of its time.
posted by lisathatcher
Last night I watched the most glorious film. How can there be this much beauty in the world? Closely Watched Trains is a film I had been looking forward to watching for a long time and finally received in the post this week. The film did not let me down. Listed as one of the standouts of the Czech […]
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser: How do your smarts measure up?
posted by lisathatcher
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, originally titled Everyman for himself and God against them all (a much better title I think) is a film by Werner Herzog based on the real life story of Kaspar Hauser, a boy of seventeen who turns up in a village square in Nuremberg after having lived in a cellar […]
Las Hurdes: Luis Bunuel and the surrealist documentary
posted by lisathatcher
I watched Las Hurdes (land without bread) today and very strangely, it happened to be reviewed in the New York Times today as well. Pure coincidence – Its been sitting in my quickflix que for months. I’m not sure why a 1932 documentary about an impoverished part of Spain is getting this sort of attention. […]
The Skin I Live In: Almodavar at his most disturbing best.
posted by lisathatcher
I saw The Skin I Live In this week, and I have to say it was easily the best new release that I saw in 2011. I watched Volver a few days before it (review coming) and I loved that film as well. Almodovar just gets better and better. The Skin I Live In doesn’t […]
Red Desert : Michelangelo Antonioni embraces colour
posted by lisathatcher
Giuliana”…must confront her social environment. It’s too simplistic to say – as many people have done – that I am condemning the inhuman industrial world which oppresses the individuals and leads them to neurosis. My intention… was to translate the poetry of the world, in which even factories can be beautiful. The line and curves […]
Luis Bunuel: The Phantom of Liberty – A review
posted by lisathatcher
I had the sublime pleasure of watching The Phantom of Liberty on the weekend, Luis Bunuel’s second last film and the one he felt best summed up all he was trying to say as a film maker. Surrealism is an older concept now. Freudians (or Lacanians rather) have moved past the idea of the latent […]
Melancholia: An exquisite chicks flick.
posted by lisathatcher
I saw Melancholia on the weekend. The reviews are mixed about this film. I enjoyed reading them (sort of – as usual some are better than others) but there DID seem to be a male female divide among them. Many male reviewers really hated the film (yawn) and many female reviewers really loved the film – citing […]
Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence: One of the best war films ever made.
posted by lisathatcher
Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence is Nagisa Oshima’s 26th film and the third last one made. He has had three strokes in his old age and it is unlikely there will ever be another one. It is based on a book called The Seed and the Sower written by Laurens Van Der Post. Merry Christmas Mr […]
Lisa Thatcher 