“Probably the best anti-war film I’ve seen. The overall impotence of our armies showed clearly how poorly we handle even a small catastrophe. What will happen with North Korea, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria … ?”

“The madness of war – opening scene in the mist amazing. Who is on whose side is irrelevant. And all the exploiters of these situations …”

“The horrors of war – like the film Lebanon that makes the experience personal and more understandable. A film to show to anyone who needs to be educated about conflict.”

“Excellent – probably tells the story of modern warfare better than most other films.”

“An excellent film set in the Bosnia/Serbia crisis. Full of memorable characters, modern cinematography, good editing and great performances from Djuric, Callow and Cartlidge.”

“A relentless fable – only too believable”

“Impressively bleak, with only minor lapses into cliché”

“What away to keep the peace – a tour de force”

“To the point. Where is Paddy Ashdown when you need him?”

“Didn’t have the moral force of All Quiet on the Western Front but a serious film, very well made.”

“Occasionally confusing but also very funny at times. Reminiscent of All Quiet on the Western Front.”

“Funny in a bitter-sweet sort of way. Sadly, all too predictable.”

“Maybe the mine represented the Euro …”

“Rather blunt satire – war is not funny”

“Merely an exercise in hand-wringing. Scored lots of cheap points but ultimately trite.”

“A shit-hot film!”

“Great. Echoes of Reservoir Dogs and The Italian Job, complete with total Scandinavian cynicism.”

“One of the decade’s best thrillers, by a country mile. Had elements of Guy Ritchie, Danny Boyle and Park-chun Wok in the cinematic events but this was one helluva ride, filled with memorable set-pieces and twists, to keep us all on the edge of our seats.”

“Gripping, edge-of-the-seat stuff!”

“Gripping stuff, even if technically fanciful at times. Very entertaining!”

“Insane plot and full of suspense. I loved it!”

“Fascinating all the way through – although one hates to see a head-hunter triumph!”

“Good fun – suspense right through to the end.”

“Horror and happiness – fast and clever. Would recommend it to anyone.”

“Pacey, engaging and entertaining: both horrific and hilarious – that’s clever. More like this please!”

“Very different but very, very good. Best film yet!”

“At last, something completely different and gripping. More like this please!”

“Enjoyable but just a little confusing!! Who did what to whom, why and for what reason? (Confused.com)”

“‘All is not as it seems’ sums up my confusion about this film but it was brilliant and never boring.”

“Almost believable – except no one would steal a ‘priceless’ painting. You couldn’t sell it!”

“Whew! Noir? Yes. Scandinavian? Yes. Funny? Yes. Would I see it again? NO!!”

“Slick, entertaining rubbish!”

“It raised my blood pressure!”

“Excellent film”

“Good performance from Quvenzhane Wallis but what was the message – don’t be rescued by an American charity?”

“Interesting and unusual – a few films of this sort could solve the unemployment problems everywhere! I liked the music.”

“Entertaining but not really my cup of tea. Interesting in parts but too whimsical and bity for me.”

“Post-apocalyptic hogwash – but very well done. Only about 30% of the dialogue was comprehensible but it probably didn’t matter.”

“Dialogue was very hard to follow.”

“I think I’ve just seen a sanitised version of hell on earth. Sound was difficult to hear clearly at times.”

“Not cohesive enough for me. It left Kathryn Bryant [animal wrangler] with an awful lot to do!”

“Disconnected. Some good photography.”

“Largely incoherent. Pity they couldn’t find a way to hold the camera steady.”

“Dullness has been re-defined. No plot, just dull and uninspired. An E rating is too good for this film!”

“1960s’ child-centred education at its very best. We should return to it!”

“Loved this – vanished days. Made by the NUT, so perhaps a trifle rose-tinted but, even so, how times have changed!”

“Very entertaining – those were the days!”

“A great aspirational film – did its best to show everyone in their best light
Strong memories evoked but it showed a more experimental method than my own strict ‘talk and chalk’”

“Very nostalgic but what happened to the Luton accent?”

“Took me back to the early ’60s, when much the same but no inkwells and desks in groups not rows.”

“Not a straightforward documentary – attempted to be a fly-on-the-wall docu-drama”

“School account very well done”

“Utopian but good for the NUT”

“Another world – was it really like that?”

“Another world. An ideal, perhaps idealised, school.”

“Too long and a bit of a dull, if idealistic, view of a school.”

“Luton? To-day’s kids would think this film was surreal science fiction!”

“Do we still have pupils and teachers like this?”

“Is this where Joyce Grenville [Grenfell] did her fieldwork?”

“The school seemed unnatural compared to my own school.”

“Not short enough”

“No merit at all!”

CARNAGE (feature)

“Brilliant feature!”

“Superbly made film. Build-up and timing were second to none!”

“Brilliant – very clever the way the comedy was wound up.”

“An excellent evening’s entertainment”

“Excellent acting and dialogue – excruciatingly funny”

“Exquisitely excruciating”

“One of the best American ensemble comedies in recent years. The entire cast was bloody brilliant and gave a master-class in screen acting on such a small set.”

“Superb update of Jean Paul Sartre’s play In Camera.”

“The contrast between early 1960s innocence and practicality was so well highlighted against 21st century ‘angst’. We probably need to submerge many more mobile ‘phones!”

“Very good satire”

“Good acting but it went on too long for the material”

“A well done play on film – one to go home and think about.”

“Very good acting by all concerned but it was like a filmed stage play.”

“Well drawn with some excellent lines”

“Much funnier than I expected and less bitter-sweet. Jodie Foster brilliant. Perhaps a tad predictable towards the end.”

“Funny in places but not up to his early standard. The animal wrangler did a great job with the hamster!”

“Pity the dialogue was so incoherent. An updated version of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

“Like a long short – might make decent play …”

“Shades of Abigail’s Party”

“A seminar in futility”

“There but for the grace of God, go we all …”

“The short was too long and the feature too short.”

“Perhaps we are just animals with a wardrobe allowance?”

There are now two screenings left in the current season – that is, showings of films covered by your subscription:

April 18 NO MAN’S LAND (93 mins, Bos/ Fra/ Spain, 2001, Cert. 15) “…Tanovic has made a smart, entertainingly acrid thumbnail sketch of the ironies and absurdities of the Bosnian war.” Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian; and

April 25 WHERE DO WE GO NOW? (98 mins, Fra/ Leb/ Egypt/ Italy, 2011, Cert. 12A) “Part religiopolitical satire, part smalltown sitcom, with a hint of romance, Where Do We Go Now? is pleasingly populated with ‘characters’ and light farce that occasionally breaks out into a movie musical…” Peter Canavese, Groucho Reviews

to mark the end of the main season, you are invited to stay behind after WHERE DO WE GO NOW? for a brief and informal discussion with simple refreshments.

Further dates for your diary:

May 2 POTICHE – joint screening and social event with ADTTS (AbingdonTwinners)

Barbed comedy in which Catherine Deneuve takes over the family umbrella factory and Gerard Depardieu plays a union leader. (Cert 15) Dir: Francois Ozon, 99 mins, France 2010.

” … It’s a sweet comedy, knowing about human nature, and Deneuve and Depardieu, who bring so much history to the screen, seem to create it by their very natures” – Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun Times)

” Catherine Deneuve is on magnificent form – singing and dancing! – in François Ozon’s comedy of female emancipation in the 1970s. … while Gérard Depardieu as an old flame of Suzanne’s brings ballast to the flyaway confection” – Anthony Quinn (The Independent)

This is showing at our usual venue, the RESOURCE AND WELLBEING CENTRE, Crabtree Close, Audlett Drive, Abingdon OX14 3GD.

* Doors open at 7.00

* pre-film glass of wine and nibbles at 7.15

* film at approximately 7.45
* cheese and wine at 9.30
* Please bring your own wine!

Please note: admission includes film, food and soft drinks, but not alcoholic drinks. Please bring your own wine!

Admission (ADTTS & ABCD members, and members’ guests): £6.50

Pay on the door – you don’t need to book, but it would help us to know in advance if you plan to attend – email: info@abfilms.org.uk.

May 23 at 7.30pm at the RWC: our ANNUAL MEMBERS’ MEETING, when we tell you our thoughts on next season’s programme and you tell us what you think of them. Plus refreshments and a short film.

June 8 – our (more or less annual) summer film get-together: THE BAND WAGON – one of the finest MGM musicals, starring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. This will be at the RWC between 5.30 pm and 8.30pm. As usual, the screening will be accompanied by an indoor picnic, organised on a bring and share basis (food and alcoholic drink). Tea, coffee, soft drinks provided. Full information to follow towards the end of May.

The next newsletter will appear early in May.

We had said this newsletter would appear early in April, but here we are in March. When we looked at the calendar of films we saw that there would be four weeks between CARNAGE (Mar 14) and HEADHUNTERS on Apr 11th, so we decided to have an extra film on Thursday 4th April:

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD

US, 2012, 93 mins Cert. 12 A

“By far the best American independent movie of the year, Benh Zeitlin’s story, set in a remote Southern delta community, is about the poverty-stricken inhabitants, particularly Hushpuppy, a young girl living on her wits and trying to survive devastating floods. Quvenzhane Wallis is stunning in the lead and this beautiful-looking debut feature feels utterly distinctive” – Derek Malcolm, previewing the London Film Festival in the London Evening Standard.

” … much of Beasts of the Southern Wild consists of bursts of pure, naked emotion, and it cartwheels along at a cracking pace. It’s fleshy and mucky … , but it’s also musical and colourful, with Hushpuppy’s voiceover leading us playfully and innocently through the story and scenes of fireworks and dancing.

“There are hints that the story, with its levees, heavy weather, flooding and refugee camp, is taking place at the time of Hurricane Katrina, but little about it is so concrete. This is a fairytale in which we regularly slip out of the real world and into another one inside an over-imaginative young child’s head. And what a crazy, fun, circus-like world that is, full of poetry and pain” – Dave Calhoun, www.TimeOut.com

Awards include: Caméra d’Or at Cannes, Sundance Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic last year; and nomination for Best Director Oscar, among others.

Tickets: This extra film is not included in your subscription, but we still hope it will be well supported.

Members: £5.00 (also members’ guests)

Others: £6.00

Concessions: £5.00 student & Friend of the Phoenix

Pay on the door, but it would be helpful to know in advance if you are coming (contacts below). PLEASE TELL YOUR FRIENDS about this screening. We need to be better known in the town – for instance, you could forward this message. Or we can send you a copy of the handsome poster that we have made to forward or print out.

Quick recap: after BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD there will be three screenings (11th, 18th and 25th April) which are all in the original programme and which are therefore included in your membership. (for details: www.abfilms.org.uk/dynsite/?page_id=840 ).

Finally, an early reminder of our annual screening jointly presented with Abingdon & District Twin Towns Society on May 2nd – POTICHE. Barbed comedy in which Catherine Deneuve takes over the family umbrella factory and Gerard Depardieu plays a union leader. (Cert 15) Dir: Francois Ozon 99 mins France 2010. Full details in next newsletter in mid-April.

All the above screenings take place at the RESOURCE AND WELLBEING CENTRE, Crabtree Close, Audlett Drive, Abingdon OX14 3GD.
email us at: info@abfilms.org.uk

“Buena!”

“Absolutely wonderful – thank you!”

“Perfect music for the film thank you for a lovely treat!”

“Great piano accompaniment”

“What a jewel of a film!”

“Just fantastic – so French. I did not expect to laugh so much.”

“Highly entertaining”

“Hard to follow in places but the piano accompaniment was excellent.”

“Being a product of its time, the film was hard to appreciate. Not even Youdell’s piano music or the French subtitles could justify the uneven pace, the horribly dated comedy stereotypes or the borderline-stupid premise. Even so, some of the gags were pretty good!”

“Great music, as always, but the story was rather too drawn out.”

“Very good piano accompaniment, as usual but film a bit too long.”

“I always enjoy the occasion, the live music and the change of venue but the film was poor. It improved towards the end but the first hour was so bad it killed any interest for me.”

“A tad laboured”

“Too long – French subtitles a distraction. Music too loud?”

“Too silly for words – talkies couldn’t come soon enough. I thought the French subtitles were a nice touch but they got in the way.”

“Utterly harrowing but astonishingly good. Superb acting by the entire cast, great cinematography and inspired soundtrack – shades of The Midwych Cuckoos, Macbeth and Saint Sebastian!”

“Very relevant to the current spate of shootings in America”

“A film of unremitting horror – but beautifully done!”

“I have to give it an A for the acting but fear bad dreams and uncertainty.”

“Good acting”

“Kevin was broken from the start.”

“A film written in images and silences”

“Fantastically well shot”

“Quite well done, if a little evenly paced. I didn’t really find any of it believable. I also struggled to hear some of it.”

“First Norman Bates, now Kevin. We are rapidly turning into the ‘horror’ Film Society of Abingdon. We need to lighten up a bit for 2013/2014 or we will achieve cult status!”

“A touch of the Ken Russell’s! A beautifully shot film, with haunting, sleep-inducing music. I think I followed most of what was going on.”

“A beautiful film but completely incomprehensible”

“Very beautiful but what was it all about?”

“Beautifully shot, if rather slow”

“Beautiful images and music but very slow”

“Not slow at all!”

“Taking into account that the plot wasn’t rocket science and the ending came as an abrupt surprise, the film was an elegantly made domestic drama. There was something for anyone who liked food, photography and writing.”

“Some fine camera angles and lovely colours but seemed longer than it was – Archipelago in Vietnam?”

“Some style but no substance”

“All style but little content. Strong on room furnishings, dresses and hair-dos. Got them more or less sorted out by the end.”

“Or leaving [illegible] but good photography”

“Photography and scenery very good”

“Disjointed. Like the curate’s egg – good in parts.”

“I didn’t know what to make of this film. I didn’t not enjoy it but it left me without anything substantial to say. Found some parts very confusing.”

“The ideal cure for insomnia!”

“Too ponderous for me but I liked the idea of a wife who wanted to make love but wouldn’t talk. What a fantasy!”

“Not interesting enough – sometimes less is less.”

“Very disappointing. Terribly repetitive but strangely baffling wrt going on. Great soundtrack, though!”

“Only the French would take 96 people to a rain-soaked country to tell the story of six anonymous characters doing nothing!”

Based on the Lionel Shriver novel of the same name, this film by Scottish director Lynne Ramsay achieves a masterful retelling of this harrowing story. Departing from the epistolary format of the book, and using a non-linear, flashback narrative, Ramsay takes us through each stage of Eva and Franklin’s marriage from carefree, freewheeling couple to parenthood. At the centre of the story is the relationship between mother Eva (Tilda Swinton) and son Kevin (Ezra Miller/ Jasper Newell), which is a struggle from his birth and which we are compelled to observe and form our own conclusions. Ramsay’s visually stunning style is visceral, evoking a feeling of heightened disquiet, as we are led towards the revelation of the event that is to devastate the Khatchadourian family and the local community in which they live.

The performances of all the cast are pitch perfect, from Rock Duer as the toddler Kevin, to Jasper Newell – Kevin from 6-8 years – and finally the adolescent Kevin of Ezra Miller. John C Reilly, as the father Franklin, is oblivious to the palpable malevolence of his son to his wife Eva – the utterly superb Tilda Swinton – to which he subsequently fails to react.

Not an easy watch. Many of the images will remain in the memory afterwards, as will the questions this film will pose.

Eva Katchadourian – Tilda Swinton
Franklin – John C Reilly
Kevin (toddler) – Rock Duer
Kevin (6 – 8 years) – Jasper Newell
Kevin (teenager) – Ezra Miller
Celia – Ashley Gerasimovich

Director – Lynne Ramsay
Screenplay – Lynne Ramsay,Rory Kinnear based on a novel by Lionel Shriver
Original Music – Jonny Greenwood
Cinematography – Seamus McGarvey
Producers – Jennifer Fox, Luc Roeg,Robert Salerno

“Ramsay’s supreme adaptation does everything possible to retain the enormous psychological power of Shriver’s novel, whilst opting for a deeply cinematic, expressionist approach to narrative storytelling (the use of colour is outstanding throughout). The result is one of the most technically-impressive, emotionally-draining films of recent times, a repost to every dissenting voice convinced that no film adaptation can ever be as good as its source material.” Daniel Green, Cine Vue.