The Chinese language only introduced a feminine pronoun in the 1920s. Now, it might adopt a gender-inclusive one, suggests JANET DAVEY
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Film round-up: August 15, 2024
Inside Afghanistan, Chinese crime thriller, entertaining pants and Alien deja vu: the Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Hollywoodgate, Only The River Flows, Jackpot! and Alien Romulus
ALEX HALL is intrigued by a detailed history of Gaza that demonstrates its historic resilience and changing economy
RON JACOBS welcomes the long overdue translation of an epic work that chronicles resistance to fascism during WWII
MAYER WAKEFIELD is chilled by the co-dependency of two lost souls as portrayed by German communist playwright Franz Xaver Kroetz
The Star's critics BRETT GREGORY, JOHN GREEN, MICHAEL BONCZA and ANGUS REID review The Stimming Pool, Misericordia, La Cocina, Irena’s Vow, and The End
CHRIS MOSS welcomes a radical history that brings marginalised stories and overlooked people and agencies to the centre
ANDREW HEDGECOCK relishes visual storytelling with no respect for genres, movements or styles
Hollywoodgate (12A)
Directed by Ibrahim Nash’at
★★★★
“WHY is he filming? asks a member of the Taliban. “He is making a documentary… Documenting our everyday lives both civilian and military for a year. If his intentions are bad he will die soon.” Chilling words from a Taliban commander about Egyptian film-maker Ibrahim Nash’at.
The Taliban agreed to let him film Mawlawi Mansour, the new head of Afghanistan’s air force whose father was killed by US forces, and MJ Mukhtar, a former Taliban fighter now with dreams of an illustrious military career, from the moment US troops left Kabul and Taliban forces took the city on August 31 2021.
He captures Mansour and his team entering Hollywood Gate, a secret CIA base, and checking what the US left behind.
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While the group known as the Colourists certainly reinvigorated Scottish painting, a new show is a welcome chance to reassess them, writes ANGUS REID
ANGUS REID recommends an exquisite drama about the disturbing impact of the one child policy in contemporary China
The phrase “cruel to be kind” comes from Hamlet, but Shakespeare’s Prince didn’t go in for kidnap, explosive punches, and cigarette deprivation. Tam is different.
ANGUS REID deconstructs a popular contemporary novel aimed at a ‘queer’ young adult readership
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