Amma Asante on race, costume drama and Belle, Jane Campion on Cannes, Bruno Dumont on Juliette Binoche, Camille Claudel and transcendental cinema, Fei Mu’s Chinese classic Spring in a Small Town and the dark dreams of Dennis Potter.
Amma Asante’s Belle presents a fictionalised account of the true tale of a mixed-race aristocrat in 18th-century England, a delicate portrait of the complexities of race and racism that strives to show that nothing in life is ever simply black and white. By Ashley Clark.
Angels and devils: the dark dreams of Dennis Potter
Britain’s pre-eminent television dramatist produced a body of work unmatched for the range of its polemical concerns. Pioneering the use of experimental techniques designed to shake viewers from their passive slumber on the sofa, his barbed, darkly comic work laid bare his own demons as he sought to shine a light on the nation’s spiritual longings, sexual anxiety and political malaise. By Graham Fuller.
Tales of ordinary madness
Bruno Dumont’s austere evocation of the life of a troubled artist in a French asylum, Camille Claudel 1915, is driven by a complex, enigmatic performance by Juliette Binoche. Here the director explains why he urged her to ‘do nothing’ in front of the camera, and how the transcendent power of cinema helps transform reality to reveal the sacred in everyday life. By Jonathan Romney.
Love among the ruins
A nationalist who sought to promote Confucian values, director Fei Mu emerged with China’s Second Generation in the 1930s but rejected their leftist political agendas. Pursuing his own poetic, experimental trajectory, his cinematic voice found full flower in 1948’s Spring in a Small Town, the tale of a love triangle set amid the post-war devastation of the Yangtze Delta. By Noah Cowan.
Aatsinki: The Story of Arctic Cowboys The Art of the Steal Bastards Battle Company: Korengal Belle Blended Brick Mansions Camille Claudel 1915 Chef Chinese Puzzle Common People Cycling with Molière Devil’s Knot The Fault in Our Stars Godzilla Grace of Monaco The Hooligan Factory In Secret Leave to Remain Mariachi Gringo Miss Violence Mistaken for Strangers Oculus Of Horses and Men 112 Weddings The 100-year-old Man Who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared The Other Woman Plastic Return to Homs Road Secret Sharer Seven Streets, Two Markets and a Wedding: Glimpses of Lost London 1930-1980 3 Days to Kill Touchy Feely When I Saw You X-Men Days of Future Past The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet
