Senne Rouffaer gives a beautifully modulated, pitch-perfect performance as Govert Miereveld, who keeps working as hard as he can (his surname means “field of ants”), in André Delvaux’s film De man die zijn haar kort liet knippen, from Johan Daisne’s Flemish novel. Govert begins as a teacher at a girls’ high school, proceeds to being […]
Daily Archives: October 25, 2008
The launch of Finnish writer-director Aki Kaurismäki’s “proletarian trilogy” (the other entries are Ariel, 1988, and The Match Factory Girl, 1990), Varjoja paratiisissa is characteristically quirky, terse and humorous while nonetheless hinting depths of loneliness and alienation below the surface of wage-slave working-class lives. It is a thin, minor piece, but indicative of the style […]
Living meagerly in Glasgow in 1987, dancing for coins in the street, Nicaraguan exile Carla has attempted suicide already; her memories of war back home are unendurable. Bus driver George Lennox falls in love with her, loses his job in pursuit of her, takes care of her after she again tries to kill herself; but […]
Dennis Grunes 