The films reviewed here represent those I have liked or loved over the years. It is not a list of my favourite films but all the films reviewed here are worth seeing and worth seeking out. I know many of you won't agree with me on a lot of these but hopefully you will grant me, and the films that appear here, our place in the sun. Thanks for reading.
Sunday, 23 March 2025
TWILIGHT
Clearly influenced by Bela Tarr and determined to outdo him when it comes to pacing, (funereal at best), and general moroseness Gyorgy Feher's "Twilight" isn't so much like watching paint dry as staring at the grey wall before it's painted. Based on the same Friedrich Durrenmatt novel as "It Happened in Broad Daylight" and "The Pledge" Feher strips it of all suspense yet gives it a sense of dread as it moves with all the slowness of a lackadaisical snail from scene to scene, image to image that is both disquieting and disorientating.
An eight year old girl is found murdered in the woods and the policeman whose last case it is is determined to find the killer even after retiring. We can just about figure this out from the material onscreen but really it helps if you've read the book or seen the other films. This is more like a palimpsest of Durrenmatt's novel, something not quite fully formed, a series of beautifully grim images rather than an actual narrative and not helped any by the monosyllabic performances of its cast.
It is, in other words, the worst kind of art-house movie, one determined to hold onto its 'masterpiece' credentials whatever the cost. Amazingly it's never really boring; you watch it transfixed in the vain hope that something might actually happen and, of course, it never does. As Jean Brodie might say, 'For those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like'.
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