Enter the Void; Burlesque; On Tour; The Tourist; Loose Cannons; Abel
Say what you like about Gaspar Noé, the man has a vision. Watching his latest art-exploitation mash-up Enter the Void (2009, Entertainment One, 18), in which the soul of a young man floats through the neon-lit streets of Tokyo after being violently killed in a toilet, is an extraordinary, if ultimately somewhat empty, experience. Imagine ingesting a vast amount of hallucinogenic drugs while skim-reading The Tibetan Book of the Dead and watching the final reel of 2001, and then sticking your head into one of those machines which makes pink candyfloss – in a strip club.
As always with Noé, everything is turned up to 11, from the cod metaphysics to the ear-bashing soundtrack, the retina-scorching visuals and the obsession with the mechanics of hardcore (remember the Vapors' catchy/creepy 80s hit "Turning Japanese" which wanted "a doctor to take your picture so I...
Say what you like about Gaspar Noé, the man has a vision. Watching his latest art-exploitation mash-up Enter the Void (2009, Entertainment One, 18), in which the soul of a young man floats through the neon-lit streets of Tokyo after being violently killed in a toilet, is an extraordinary, if ultimately somewhat empty, experience. Imagine ingesting a vast amount of hallucinogenic drugs while skim-reading The Tibetan Book of the Dead and watching the final reel of 2001, and then sticking your head into one of those machines which makes pink candyfloss – in a strip club.
As always with Noé, everything is turned up to 11, from the cod metaphysics to the ear-bashing soundtrack, the retina-scorching visuals and the obsession with the mechanics of hardcore (remember the Vapors' catchy/creepy 80s hit "Turning Japanese" which wanted "a doctor to take your picture so I...
- 4/26/2011
- by Mark Kermode
- The Guardian - Film News
Abel is the excellent feature debut of actor Diego Luna which is, surprisingly, much softer and heart-warming than its surrealist premise makes out. A withdrawn and perhaps disturbed nine year old boy has spent two years in at a mental hospital and one day returns home to become the man of the house – a role he takes to with full commitment.
Instead of becoming a fractious and domineering tyrant young Abel actually brings the family closer together and makes it run like clockwork. He’s stern but loving towards his sister, becomes a good friend to his brother Paul and cares for his mother. For a while you’ll be thinking it isn’t such a strange set up after all, but with the acceptance comes a growing sense of unease.
Abel might be crackers but he’s a tragic sort and even the inevitable amorous advances he makes to...
Instead of becoming a fractious and domineering tyrant young Abel actually brings the family closer together and makes it run like clockwork. He’s stern but loving towards his sister, becomes a good friend to his brother Paul and cares for his mother. For a while you’ll be thinking it isn’t such a strange set up after all, but with the acceptance comes a growing sense of unease.
Abel might be crackers but he’s a tragic sort and even the inevitable amorous advances he makes to...
- 1/6/2011
- by Martyn Conterio
- FilmShaft.com
Diego Luna’s directorial debut comes in the form of ‘Abel’. Produced by Gael Garcia Bernal and John Malkovich, Abel is dubbed “a darkly funny and poignant film about parental absenteeism in Mexico on 7th January 2011″.
No stranger to the big screen, cinema-goers will remember Luna’s performances in Academy Award winning and nominated movies such as ‘Milk’, ‘Frida’ and 2001′s critically acclaimed Mexican Drama, ‘Y tu mama tambien’ (“And your mother too”), where he received an award for best actor.
Abel will open at selected cinemas including Curzon Soho, Vue Shepherds Bush, Filmhouse Edinburgh, Bristol Watershed and Showroom Sheffield. In addition, Diego Luna will be doing Q&As for Abel at the Filmhouse Edinburgh on Thursday 6th January , The Curzon Soho on Friday 7th and the Cornerhouse Manchester on 8th January 2011, so don’t miss out!
Here’s the synopsis:
Christopher Ruiz-Esparza (a mere 9 years of age at...
No stranger to the big screen, cinema-goers will remember Luna’s performances in Academy Award winning and nominated movies such as ‘Milk’, ‘Frida’ and 2001′s critically acclaimed Mexican Drama, ‘Y tu mama tambien’ (“And your mother too”), where he received an award for best actor.
Abel will open at selected cinemas including Curzon Soho, Vue Shepherds Bush, Filmhouse Edinburgh, Bristol Watershed and Showroom Sheffield. In addition, Diego Luna will be doing Q&As for Abel at the Filmhouse Edinburgh on Thursday 6th January , The Curzon Soho on Friday 7th and the Cornerhouse Manchester on 8th January 2011, so don’t miss out!
Here’s the synopsis:
Christopher Ruiz-Esparza (a mere 9 years of age at...
- 1/5/2011
- by Andy Petrou
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Mexican actor, Diego Luna's fascinating directional debut, Abel, tells the story of a mentally ill nine year-old boy who becomes convinced he's the man of the house when he returns from the hospital for a trial week at home.
No longer able to stay in the women's ward, Abel's mother is distraught when told he might need treatment further afield in Mexico City Hospital. Convinced his mother's love and the reassuring natural presence of his brother, Paul, and sister, Selene, will cure him, she's given a week to see if his new surroundings will prompt an improvement. Within a day, Abel is miraculously talking again, but what he utters is rather puzzling.
Initial signs of Abel's deluded belief that he's the man of the house afford moments of surreal light comedy as he fixes the toilet; takes up the good parent's nightly rounds of putting the children...
No longer able to stay in the women's ward, Abel's mother is distraught when told he might need treatment further afield in Mexico City Hospital. Convinced his mother's love and the reassuring natural presence of his brother, Paul, and sister, Selene, will cure him, she's given a week to see if his new surroundings will prompt an improvement. Within a day, Abel is miraculously talking again, but what he utters is rather puzzling.
Initial signs of Abel's deluded belief that he's the man of the house afford moments of surreal light comedy as he fixes the toilet; takes up the good parent's nightly rounds of putting the children...
- 12/30/2010
- Shadowlocked
Mexican actor burst onto the scene alongside best friend Gael Bernal Garcia in the great Y Tu Mama Tambien a few years ago now. Since then he’s appeared in the odd Us film like Steven Spielberg’s The Terminal and worked with the brilliantly odd Harmony Korine in Mr. Lonely.
Now Luna has made his feature directorial debut with Abel, which is due in UK cinemas from 7th January. We’ve got the new UK trailer for you to see. The film has been produced by John Malkovich and Gael Bernal Garcia. So there’s your stamp of approval and goodness right there!
Synopsis:
Abel, a nine-year-old boy, has stopped talking since his father left home. One morning he starts to speak again, and appears to believe that he is the head of the family. As he oversees his siblings’ homework and interrogates his sister’s new boyfriend, no...
Now Luna has made his feature directorial debut with Abel, which is due in UK cinemas from 7th January. We’ve got the new UK trailer for you to see. The film has been produced by John Malkovich and Gael Bernal Garcia. So there’s your stamp of approval and goodness right there!
Synopsis:
Abel, a nine-year-old boy, has stopped talking since his father left home. One morning he starts to speak again, and appears to believe that he is the head of the family. As he oversees his siblings’ homework and interrogates his sister’s new boyfriend, no...
- 12/18/2010
- by Martyn Conterio
- FilmShaft.com
Craig here from Dark Eye Socket with my Lff wrap-up.
As of tonight the BFI London Film Festival is done for another year. It's been a stellar year all told, if the surplus of reports are to be believed. And I'd willingly add a further approving nod to the list. I didn't manage to see everything I wanted (juggling festival times and dates with travel arrangements is an art – one that's open to fateful intervention...and multiple tube delays), but what I saw was on the whole a bumper crop. Roll on next year, I say. Here are five previous reviews, selected from the films I saw: Uncle Boonmee, A Screaming Man, Winter Vacation, Rare Exports and What I Love the Most. And below are five final mini reviews of a few festival highlights.
Thomas Vinterberg introduced his new film, Submarino, in a cheeky fashion: “if all goes well, you...
As of tonight the BFI London Film Festival is done for another year. It's been a stellar year all told, if the surplus of reports are to be believed. And I'd willingly add a further approving nod to the list. I didn't manage to see everything I wanted (juggling festival times and dates with travel arrangements is an art – one that's open to fateful intervention...and multiple tube delays), but what I saw was on the whole a bumper crop. Roll on next year, I say. Here are five previous reviews, selected from the films I saw: Uncle Boonmee, A Screaming Man, Winter Vacation, Rare Exports and What I Love the Most. And below are five final mini reviews of a few festival highlights.
Thomas Vinterberg introduced his new film, Submarino, in a cheeky fashion: “if all goes well, you...
- 10/29/2010
- by Craig Bloomfield
- FilmExperience
The 58th edition of the San Sebastián Int. Film Festival got its start this past Saturday with a inaugural ceremony in which an absent Roman Polanski was awarded the 2010 Fipresci award from the international critics for The Ghost Writer. Olivia Williams, one of the actresses from the film, received the award on his behalf from the hands of the president of the international federation of cinema critics, Jan Lumholdt. The festival's opening film was Chicogrande from director Felipe Cazals, a veteran filmmaker who was already awarded at the festival for Los Motivos de Luz. The film, which has been well received, is a recreation of the Mexican revolution through the eyes of a man that saved the life of a wounded Pancho Villa in the year 1916. The film stars Damián Alcázar, Daniel Mártinez and Juan Manuel Bernal.Abel, Diego Luna's directing debut which was previously shown in Sundance and Cannes,...
- 9/22/2010
- IONCINEMA.com
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