After a week’s gap we return to our recommended film chart just to find more new releases lined up and a Top 10 that has been nearly replaced in full. Last week an ecclectic mix of Oscar contenders (Silver Linings Playbook); award winning documentaries (The House I Live In); a ground breaking cop drama (End Of Watch) and a superb restored classic (Lawrence Of Arabia) arrived to our theatres.
This week’s offering is not any less impressive with such treats as the gripping Dutch drama ‘The Hunt’★★★★; hailed as Thomas Vinterberg’s return to form. The director of ‘Festen’ (Celebration), one of the original members of the Dogma movement, tells the story of a small community descending into a witch hunt against a nursery teacher who is falsely accused of paedophilia after an innocent lie told by his best friend’s little daughter. The nursery’s manager confused initial reaction quickly expands among the neighbours and prompts his life into a downward spiral. Mads Mikkelsen, recently seen as the King’s advisor in the excellent period drama ‘A Royal Affair’, won best actor at Cannes for his terrific portrait of a man who powerlessly watches his whole life disintegrating.
Also new this week is ‘Yossi’★★★½, Eytan Fox’s notable follow-up to ‘Yossi & Jagger’, the film that a decade ago became notorious for depicting a gay relationship within the secretive ranks of the Israeli army. But if we have to choose a film of the week, the one we genuinely enjoyed the most was the darkly comic road movie ‘Sightseers’★★★★. Described as a cross between Mike Leigh’s ‘Nuts In May’ and ‘Badlands’; Ben Wheatley’s new opus after his acclaimed second feature ‘Kill List’ is a radical change of genre. This time he goes for the laughter, but keeping a great deal of horror in the mix, through the story of an ordinary middle age couple who embarks on an apparently dull caravan holiday to explore the tourist delights around the Lake District, leaving a trail of death and museum leaflets behind. Comedians Alice Lowe and Steve Oram star and penned the script, whereas Wheatley perfectly manages the required tone changes between well-observed naturalist comedy and the gory killing spree, British way, the lovers indulge in as a wide range of annoying people get in their way. Perhaps the best comedy the UK industry has produced in years, ‘Sightseers’ is superb.
Check our Recommended Top 10 Films of the week here.