Brief Encounter

Goodness reduced to helplessness in the face of evil is the characteristic feature of the moral universe of today’s popular culture

Brother, a Russian film written and directed by Alexei Balabanov, stars Sergei Bodrov, Jr, as Danila, a recently discharged soldier at a loose end who makes his way to St. Petersburg where his brother, Viktor (Victor Suhorukov) is somebody in the burgeoning underworld of Russia’s second city. The city itself is a main character in…

In Les Misérables, directed by Bille August, it is the film itself which turns out to be misérable: thin and poor and wretched and in need of feeding up. The one thing you don’t want to skimp on when you are filming an epic is the epic proportions. August, a fine director of intense and…

Errol Morris goes slumming

A beautiful if harrowing film about a clash between medieval and modern in which neither looks much like a winner

The idea behind this movie is mistaken, I think, but its execution makes it very watchable