film 2006

There are some refreshingly unHollywood films out at the moment. If you haven’t seen ‘Goodnight, and good luck’ yet, you might need to be quick. It’s black and white, nicely understated, and is a very simple piece of film making. It’s set in a 1950s TV studio, concerns a reporter’s conflict with Joe McCarthy, and has a lot to say about modern journalism. It’s also a good deal better than ‘Syriana’, which is slightly less clever and controversial than it thinks it is.

There’s also some great African cinema out in ‘Tsotsi’ and ‘Shooting Dogs’, and African cinema is a rare bird indeed. I think technically they’re billed as British films because of funding, but there are fair percentages of bona fide South Africans and Rwandans in the crew.
I haven’t seen ‘Tsotsi’ yet, but ‘Shooting Dogs’ is worth a look. It’s a true story from Rwanda, focuses on a specific school, and is shot in the actual locations with survivors of the genocide among the crew and extras. It’s an unusual film in that you know there is no happy ending. The characters develop at the same pace as the sense of menace, and you begin to understand and like people just as it becomes obvious that they’re fate is sealed. It’s a bold way of structuring a story, to frame it in a context of impending death.

If you get a chance to see it, do. And let me know what you think. Both this one and ‘Goodnight…’ have some interesting Christian perspectives.

2006…the year the film industry remembers its audience has a mind?