October 10, 15 and 16
DIANA
The last two years of the Princess of Wales’ life apparently featured an affair with a heart surgeon. Anyone remotely interested in this tiresome and unnecessary premise will likely warm to Naomi Watts’ insipid impersonation of Diana (yet balk at Naveen Andrews’ ghastly Khan). About as misguided and probably misinformed as is possible for a commercial enterprise selling itself on a famous name, and slammed by critics, this horrendously scripted farrago is to be avoided not least out of respect for the deceased. ‘Poor Princess Diana. I hesitate to use the term “car crash cinema”. But the awful truth is that, 16 years after that terrible day in 1997, she has died another awful death’ (The Guardian). ‘More terrible and tacky than one could have imagined, it will soon be forgotten’ (Empire).
October 11–14
RUSH
Everyone’s driven by something. A surprise hit, Ron Howard’s film intelligently and fascinatingly chronicles the intense rivalry between two very different alpha male Formula 1 types in the 1970s, when motor racing was far more dangerous than it is today. The charismatic James Hunt’s need for speed pits him against the equally needy Niki Lauda in a duel of wills and thrills. ‘Mr. Howard doesn’t just want you to crawl inside a Formula One racecar, he also wants you to crawl inside its driver’s head’ (New York Times). ‘What Rush has to offer is a great human drama, two dangerously talented men pushing each other to risky victory and a superb script, delivered with some mastery by Hemsworth and Brühl’ (The Guardian).
October 17–20
THE FAMILY
The Manzoni family, a notorious American mafia clan, is relocated to a small town in Normandy under the witness-protection programme, where fitting in soon becomes challenging: old habits die hard, and they let their enemies catch up with them. Luc Besson delivers dark humour. ‘A pretty uneven film, lurching from comedy to violence to sentiment, but it’s best when it sticks in the realm of flat-out farce’ (Sheila O’Malley). ‘The movie has holes galore. It has abrupt tonal shifts, an incoherent back story and abandoned subplots. It doesn’t even try for basic credibility. But buoyed by hot performances, it sustains a zapping electrical energy’ (New York Times). ‘Curiously airless, weightless and tonally uncertain, the picture mixes mass murder, dismemberment and rape threats with sappy sentimentality, fish-out-of-water gags and groan-worthy meta-humor, yet very little of it manages to leave any impression’ (Variety).
October 21–23
BEFORE MIDNIGHT
It’s almost two decades since Jesse and Celine met on that train bound for Vienna in ‘Before Sunrise’. ‘The latest in the wonderful ‘Before’ series does three important things: it breaks out of the courtship formula, yet retains the series’ quality, and it moves the lives of Celine (Julie Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke) forward in ways that are satisfying and believable. True, a romance you once envied might now be a relationship you’d not want to be in, but as long as Celine and Jesse are still talking, there’s hope.’(San Francisco Chronicle). ‘[A] wonderful paradox: a movie passionately committed to the ideal of imperfection that is itself very close to perfect’ (New York Times). ‘A bit tarter than its predecessors, but not skimping on their woozy, chatty charm, this perfectly played, gently incisive film is a welcome new chapter in one of cinema’s most beguiling ongoing romances. See it with someone you’ve loved for some time’ (Empire).
ODEON Cinema
piazza Strozzi 2, tel. 055/295051
Australia-New Zealand Film Fest
October 16
MAD MAX
Exploitation revenge thriller set in a futuristic Australia terrorized by marauding cops and anarchic gangs who vie for control of the territory.
‘The genius of Mad Max is its refusal to shiver in the shade of its influences. Asserting itself like an alpha (and likely rabid) dog and rocketing forward like “a fuel-injected suicide machine”… Mad Max rarely drops out of high gear’ (Turner Classic Movies). ‘The tone sometimes wavers into self-parody, and there are occasional crude patches, but overall this edge-of-seat revenge movie marks the most exciting debut from an Australian director since Peter Weir’ (Time Out).
October 23
BREAKER MORANT
Colonial South Africa, the Boer War. Three Australian lieutenants are on trial for murdering Boer prisoners and a German missionary. The conniving authorities’ betrayal and injustice stirs powerful feelings. ‘Breaker Morant is a challenging and thought provoking work, peppered by political impartiality but driven by a hard-nosed, blood-on-their-hands realism. The story penetrates notions of hierarchy, responsibility, loyalty and the value of human lives. The film provides a detailed, absorbing and timelessly relevant depiction of a war trial and zooms into the faces of those involved to measure its velocity. [Bruce] Beresford gets so close to his characters; his direction is so astutely fixated on their traits, ideologies and arguments that you can practically smell the sweat dripping from their armpits’ (In Film Australia). ‘Beresford’s direction is at first so crisp that Breaker Morant appears headed for a familiar dead end—the land of stiff salutes, twitching mustaches, barked commands, and other staples of movies about the military. But by the time it plays out its hand, this film has become genuinely, surprisingly affecting. And unspeakably sad’ (New York Times).
BRITISH INSTITUTE of Florence
Lungarno Guicciardini 9
tel. 055/26778270
