Playback provides a fascinating document of the making of Hard To Be A God
There’s a fine line between madness and genius in filmmaking, and the truly great, hard-to-believe-they exist-films have often perched on that line. And nothing has brought this more into focus than a making of documentary for such a film. Documentaries like Hearts of Darkness and Burden of Dreams give a way to understand the extraordinary story behind Apocalypse … Read more
Manakamana review
Manakamana opens with a single, locked off shot of an old man and a young boy, silently seated in a cable car. As the beautifully luscious Nepalese jungles falls away in the background, framed by the window behind them and playing like a film within the film, we are left in the dark as to why … Read more
LFF: Nas – Time is Illmatic review
The starting point of Nas: Time is Illmatic, the debut documentary feature from director One9 and writer Erik Parker, is not just that Illmatic, Nas’ debut album, is a great album but that it is a perfect record. It’s no surprise, then, to find that the film is reverential in tone, but what is perhaps most … Read more
I Am Divine review
Note: In this review I refer to both Glenn and Divine as male, using “He” and “His.” I have done this as Divine’s friend John Waters does the same throughout the film. Harris Glenn Milstead was born in 1945 to Harris Benard Milstead and Frances Milstead. His parents were socially conservative, upper middle class and brought up young Glenn – they … Read more