KEN COCKBURN assesses the art of Ian Hamilton Finlay for the experience of warfare it incited and represents
Film round-up: November 21, 2024
A bucket-list of visuals, the unsung heroine of IVF, queer love in the City of London, and half a musical: The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Blink, Joy, Layla and Wicked
(L) Bilal Hasna in Leyla; (R) Thomasin McKenzie and James in Joy
The bard gives us advance notice of his upcoming medieval K-pop releases
GORDON PARSONS steps warily through the pessimistic world view of an influential US conservative
HENRY BELL takes issue with the assertion that basic income is a remedy for poverty when it doesn’t address the inbuilt inequality of capitalism
RON JACOBS welcomes an investigation of the murders of US leftist activists that tells the story of a solidarity movement in Chile
RITA DI SANTO surveys the smorgasbord of films on offer at this year’s festival
Reviews of A New Kind Of Wilderness, The Marching Band, Good One and Magic Farm by MARIA DUARTE, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA
Blink (U)
Directed by Daniel Roher and Edmund Stenson
★★★★
THIS beautiful yet heartbreaking film follows a Canadian couple who decide to take their four young children on a globe-trotting trip after they learn three of them are slowing going blind.
This awe-inspiring documentary begins with Edith Lemay and Sebastien Pelletier being told their daughter Mia (11) and their sons Colin (six) and Laurent (just four) have retinitis pigmentosa, an incurable and rare genetic disease. Their nine-year-old son Leo was spared.
A specialist advises the couple all they can do is to fill their kids’ visual memory by showing them images from books. Instead Edith says: “Let’s go all in and fill their visual memory with as many beautiful things as we can.”
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