Robert Tanitch reviews the latest DVDs
TIMBUKTU (Artificial Eye). French-Mauritanian director Abdeerahmane Sissako’s award-nominated and sobering parable (beautifully photographed) about religious extremism observes the occupation and humiliation of the citizens of Timbuktu by fanatical jihadists from abroad who speak five different languages and need translators. Daily life is a nightmare for this benevolent, tolerant and faithful Islamic community. No smoking. No music. Marriages are forced. No football on pain of 20 lashes. (There is a memorable moment when the boys play the game with an imaginary ball.) No adultery; and especially not during Ramadan. Offenders are stoned to death. A Shaira court condemns a cattle-herder to death for manslaughter. There is no leniency, no forgiveness and no pity. Viewing the film is very salutary; any complaints you may have about your life will seem trivial in comparison.
GLASSLAND (Kaleidoscope). A young Irishman (Jack Reynor), who is not earning enough money as a taxi-driver, struggles to care for his alcoholic mother (Toni Colette) who is no longer the mum he once knew. She is dying, though she does not know it. Their caustic relationship is painful. A particularly effective moment is when she is screaming in his face and he records her on his mobile to show her later what she is like. He tries to do his best; but the financial and especially the emotional burden prove too great. Gerard Barrett’s film is bleak, occasionally obscure and far too slow; the ending will flummox most people. What is or has been going on is left hanging in the air.
A SECOND CHANCE (Entertainment One). Parenting is a hard job. Susanne Bier’s highly contrived Danish melodrama asks who is likely to bring up a baby best? Is it a nice middle-class couple or a psychotic and his heroin-addicted partner? One baby is clean; the other is covered in his own excrement. The middle-class baby dies. The father (a policeman) behaves in a totally unbelievable way. He gains entrance to the psychotic’s home and steals his baby and replaces him with his dead baby. The film gets more and more implausible the longer it goes on. The policeman is played by Nicolaj Cotter-Waldau whom you may have seen in Game of Thrones.
LES COMBATTANTS (Kaleidoscope). The basic trouble with Thomas Cailley’s French romantic comedy is that you don’t want the innocent young man (Kevin Azais) to fall in love with the tough, sullen, thoroughly unpleasant college drop-out (Madeleine Haenel) who thinks Armageddon is just around the corner. Astonishingly, he does fall in love and joins her in an army boot camp where they learn survival techniques. She behaves very badly and he still doesn’t ditch her. The final sequence, with forest fire and deserted village, plays like something out of a SF film.
To learn more about Robert Tanitch and his reviews, click here to go to his website
