ANDREW HEDGECOCK relishes visual storytelling with no respect for genres, movements or styles
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Film round-up: June 6, 2024
An immigrant Western, a bearded lady in love, blueberry pie and a double act ripe for retirement: the Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews new releases The Dead Don’t Hurt, Rosalie, Riddle of Fire and Bad Boys: Ride or Die
MARK TURNER is staggered by a gifted jazz pianist from the Welsh Valleys
JESSICA WIDNER explores how the twin themes of violence and love run through the novels of South Korean Nobel prize-winner Han Kang
SARAH TROTT explores short fictional slices of life in the American midwest from a middle-aged and mostly female perspective
New releases from Black Country, New Road, Anouar Brahem, and Jaywalkers
RICHARD CLARKE recommends a hugely valuable text for those seeking theoretical analysis and practical action to defend public services
JOHN HAWKINS is moved by an oral history that examines five black families pushed into homelessness in the US
The Dead Don’t Hurt (15)
Directed by Viggo Mortensen
★★★
ACTOR turned writer-director Viggo Mortensen takes one of my most hated tropes in the Western genre and gives it a fresh twist in this quietly powerful and slow burning drama about two star-crossed lovers and pioneers.
Like most Westerns it involves a woman being raped and killed to propel the action forward which is unacceptable today even if it is portrayed in a surprising way.
Set in the 1860s, it opens with Danish immigrant and former soldier Holger Olsen (Mortensen) watching the love of his life Vivienne Le Coudy (Vicky Krieps), who’s French-Canadian, die from a terminal illness.
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