MARIA DUARTE recommends a remarkable study of the friendship between a Palestinian and a Pakistani, broken by a hostile state
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Film round-up
Reviews of State Funeral, My New York Year, Rare Beasts, Spiral, Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway and Army of the Dead
ENGAGING: My New York Year
MATTHEW HAWKINS rakes through un-fancy words and flair-free summaries to find who and what might be flamboyant
PETER MASON is exhilarated by an exciting, well-considered and historically minded tribute to the great Trinidadian instrument
Reducing historical lives to ‘male’ and ‘female’ roles, we lose the nuance of those lives and a clearer understanding of past societies, suggests CLAIRE ISABELLA GILMOUR
CHRIS SEARLE relishes the genius of pianist Alexander Hawkins, his many ensembles, and his new album
State Funeral (PG)
Directed by Sergei Loznitsa
★★★
MOSTLY based on previously unseen archive footage, writer-director Sergei Loznitsa’s new montage film depicts the shock and awe, followed by mass hysteria, after the death of Joseph Stalin in March 1953.
The documentary follows the four days from the announcement of his demise, in excruciating detail over the radio, to his funeral in Red Square. It places you in the midst of the events as hundreds of thousands of people arrived from all corners of the USSR (and from abroad) to pay their respects to their former leader, whose rule resulted in the deaths of millions of Soviet citizens.
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ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Synthetic Sincerity, Our Hero, Balthazar, Heartstopper Forever, and A Year In London
LEO BOIX, ANGUS REID and MARIA DUARTE review Night Stage, Two Women, Kim Novak’s Vertigo, and Fuze
LEO BOIX, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review Dreamers, It Was Just An Accident, Folktales, and Eternity