Category Archives: Locarno International Film Festival

LOCARNO FILM REVIEW: Oleg Novkovic’s ‘White White World’

By Ray Bennett LOCARNO, Switzerland – There are several mournful songs in Serbian director Oleg Novkovic’s “White White World” (Beli Beli Svet) and they seem to emerge from the melancholy Balkan soul of its array of defeated characters struggling to … Continue reading

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LOCARNO FILM REVIEW: Valdis Oskarsdottir’s ‘King’s Road’

By Ray Bennett LOCARNO, Switzerland – Danish filmmaker Valdis Oskarsdottir, who won the 2004 best editing prize at the BAFTA film awards for “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” has created a winning concoction for her second feature, “King’s Road”, … Continue reading

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LOCARNO FILM REVIEW: ‘Deep in the Woods’

By Ray Bennett LOCARNO, Switzerland – French filmmaker Benoit Jacquot’s “Deep in the Woods” (Au fond des bois”), takes a surprisingly benign view of kidnapping and rape in the tale of a bucolic erotic neurotic and her many tumbles in … Continue reading

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LOCARNO FILM REVIEW: ‘Under Bauern: Saviors of the Night’

By Ray Bennett LOCARNO, Switzerland – German cinema’s growing number of films willing to address topics relating to World War II has a fine addition in Ludi Boeken’s “Under Bauern: Saviors of the Night”, which tells of farmers — unter … Continue reading

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LOCARNO FILM REVIEW: Frederic Mermoud’s ‘Partners’

By Ray Bennett LOCARNO, Switzerland – Swiss director Frederic Mermoud’s “Partners” is a police procedural with sex that deals with two sets of couples on both sides of the law involved in the murder of a male prostitute. The provocative … Continue reading

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LOCARNO FILM REVIEW: Urszula Antoniak’s ‘Nothing Personal’

By Ray Bennett LOCARNO, Switzerland – Holland-based Polish director Urszula Antoniak’s “Nothing Personal” is an intensely personal and engrossing tale of a ferociously independent young woman’s involvement with a kind widower in a remote part of Ireland. Lotte Verbeek (pictured) … Continue reading

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LOCARNO FILM REVIEW: Sarah Leonor’s ‘A Real Life’

By Ray Bennett LOCARNO, Switzerland – Sarah Leonor’s “Au Voleur” (A Real Life), starring the late Guillaume Depardieu, is an odd little picture that runs along like a somewhat dull tale of petty criminals but in the last third becomes … Continue reading

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LOCARNO FILM REVIEW: Filippos Tsitos’s ‘Plato’s Academy’

By Ray Bennett LOCARNO, Switzerland – Intelligent, warm and very funny, Filippos Tsitos’s “Akadimia Platonos” (Plato’s Academy) is a small tale of a proudly nationalistic Greek man who discovers that he might actually be Albanian, a situation that causes trouble … Continue reading

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LOCARNO FILM REVIEW: Xiaolu Guo’s ‘She, a Chinese’

By Ray Bennett LOCARNO, Switzerland – Chinese filmmaker Xiaolu Guo’s “She, a Chinese” is an absorbing character study of a young woman from rural China who makes her way to the big city and then to England in a journey … Continue reading

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LOCARNO FILM REVIEW: ‘Julia’s Disappearance’

By Ray Bennett LOCARNO, Switzerland – Sophisticated and insightful, Christoph Schaub’s “Julia’s Disappearance” is a romantic comedy about getting older that should charm grownup audiences keen for some wry laughs without sentimentality. The film won the public award after its … Continue reading

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