Film reviews
Men In Black 3
It’s not a sequel that needed to be made, but thanks to the charm of its leads and a tone that harks back to the wit and humour of the original, it’s a pretty enjoyable trip.
Bel Ami
The excellent female support cast saves this patchy effort, which is let down by its leading man and a flat screenplay.
The Dictator
A disappointing, often repulsive and mean-spirited mess of a film with seemingly only one real criterion on its agenda: to shock and offend.
The Woman In Black
Packed with atmosphere, this old-fashioned but deftly told ghost story delivers ample chills and thrills.
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Sarah's Key (Film)
Rating: M
Running Time: 111
Country: France
Director: Gilles Paquet-Brenner
Cast: Dominique Frot, Mélusine Mayance, Aidan Quinn, Kristin Scott Thomas
Distributor: Madman
Release Date: December 23, 2010
Film Worth: $14.00
FILMINK rates movies out of $20 - the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worthDelivered with authenticity and driven by superb, layered performances, this is a profound and powerful viewing experience.
There are scenes in this film that feel like they've been prised from a time capsule. When the French police force the Starzynskis - a Jewish family living in Nazi-occupied Paris - into a velodrome with thousands of other detained Jews, you think, ‘This is what it was really like.' Capturing the filth, fear and desperation, the camera hovers directly, slowly, above those caught in the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup, as the rest of Paris pretends that it's not happening.
Distressing but riveting, Sarah's Key is an intricate story that cuts between the past and the present. In today's France, Julia (Kristin Scott Thomas), an American journalist married to a Parisian, is researching the infamous roundup, where French Jews were arrested en masse not by the Nazis, but by the French, and hurled into the velodrome.
Across time in 1942, young Sarah Starzynski (a beautifully cast Mélusine Mayance) tries to protect her adored little brother, Michel, from the police knocking at her door. She locks Michel in a cupboard, hoping that he will escape what will one day be called The Holocaust.
This is just the beginning of a richly plotted film that plays like a mystery as it charts both Sarah's and Julia's journeys, and how their stories intersect in an unpredictable way.
Kristin Scott Thomas has the gravity needed for such a complex film. She's superb. In his fairly small role, Aidan Quinn is somewhat unconvincing but still likeable, yet the rest of the cast cannot be faulted.
Sarah's Key is a film that you physically react to - you gasp, you put your hand over your mouth, you feel every crucial dramatic moment in your gut. It's genuinely profound, and it has relevance to the present - it challenges us to ask whether we are like the Parisians of 1942, turning a blind eye to all manner of modern atrocities.
