Film digest
MANDABI (PG, 92 mins)
Senegalese writer-director Ousmane Sembene’s groundbreaking 1968 drama, which won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival and is considered the first featurelength film in an African language, is released in UK cinemas for the first time as a sparkling 4K restoration.
Adapted by the film-maker from his own novella, Mandabi centres on unemployed father of seven Ibrahima Dieng (Makhouredia Gueye), who cannot find work in Dakar.
He receives a large money order from his nephew Abdu (Mouss Diouf), who works as a street sweeper in Paris.
Ibrahima intends to keep a small portion for himself and then set aside the rest for his sister (Therese Bas) and Abdu.
When news spreads about the money order, Ibrahima is inundated with requests from his two wives (Ynousse N’Diaye, Isseu Niang) and opportunistic neighbours.
His nightmarish ordeal intensifies when he faces bureaucratic red tape to cash the money order.
FARGO (15, 100 mins)
A 25th anniversary rerelease of Joel and Ethan Coen’s deliciously twisted black comedy, which was deservedly nominated for seven Academy Awards and won two golden statuettes: Best Actress In A Leading Role for Frances McDormand and Best Original Screenplay for the filmmaker siblings.
Car salesman Jerry Lundegaard (William H Macy) hatches a hare-brained scheme in backwater Minnesota to pay off his debts by ransoming his wife Jean (Kristin Rudrud).
He hires two hapless hoodlums, Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi) and Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare), to carry out the kidnapping, certain that his father-in-law Wade Gustafson (Harve Presnell) will meet the six-figure asking price.
Alas, the hastily conceived plan doesn’t unfold as planned, setting in motion a blood-soaked chain of events that leads heavily pregnant police chief Marge Gunderson (McDormand) to hunt down a “funny-looking guy” for homicide.
You betcha!
OPERA NATIONAL DE PARIS: FAUST (15, 206 mins)
Tobias Kratzer directs a highly cinematic, multimedia staging of Gounod’s popular opera, which was recorded live on the stage of the Opera Bastille in Paris.
Ageing philosopher Faust (Benjamin Bernheim) is determined to secure the love of the beautiful Marguerite (Ermonela Jaho) at any cost.
He forges a pact with the devil Mephistopheles (Christian Van Horn): his soul in exchange for youth and Marguerite’s heart.
Once the deal is struck, Mephistopheles meddles in the burgeoning romance of Marguerite and her suitor Siebel (Michele Losier) to push the young woman towards Faust.
However, he loses interest in
Marguerite and abandons her shortly before her brother Valentin (Florian Sempey) returns from war.
VIOLET EVERGARDEN: THE MOVIE (12A, 140 mins)
Taichi Ishidate directs a Japanese animated romantic drama, which continues the story of the Violet Evergarden anime TV series based on novels written by Kana Akatsuki and illustrated by Akiko Takase.
Several years after the end of a cataclysmic war, which tore apart mankind and inflicted deep psychological wounds on the survivors, Violet Evergarden (voiced by Yui Ishikawa) works as a writer of letters.
The world around Violet has gradually healed thanks to the development of new technologies.
Unfortunately, she is haunted by the loss of an important person and still carries deep feelings for him.
One day, a letter is discovered that sends Violet into an emotional tailspin and forever changes her carefully ordered life.
THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD (15)
Between laser-targeted gun shots in director Taylor Sheridan’s ruthlessly economical pursuit thriller, a sharp-suited puppet master (Tyler Perry) communicates the art of warfare in a single snappy refrain: “Assume catastrophe and act accordingly.”
Those Who Wish Me Dead takes his words to its blackened heart, orchestrating a high-stakes game of cats and mice in the fireravaged Montana wilderness by melting away extraneous fat from dramatic exposition and character development.
The sinewy script, adapted from Michael Koryta’s book by the author, Sheridan and Charles Leavitt, steadily cranks up tension as a female firefighter and her young ward go on the run from assassins in the belly of a raging inferno.
Fire sequences are orchestrated in pulse-quickening close-up in a specially constructed 300-acre forest, which Sheridan and his team set ablaze to minimise the use of digital effects and immerse actors in their smouldering environment.
Where there’s smoke, Sheridan’s film is on fire.