The Childhood of a Leader (September 15th and 17th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[THE CHILDHOOD OF A LEADER screens Thursday September 15th at 8:40 pm and Saturday September 17th at 8:30 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

Like Quentin Tarantino's recent film THE HATEFUL EIGHT, THE CHILDHOOD OF A LEADER is presented as an old-school road show epic. It opens with a tense overture showing the end of WWI, including lots of shots of grateful Europeans holding up “vive Wilson” signs. The overture culminates in our first glimpse of the future despot of the title, Prescott (Tom Sweet), dressed as an angel for a church Christmas play. But this child is anything but angelic. More like a bad seed.

This is followed by a seemingly casual scene in which two men, one of them the boy's father (Liam Cunningham), play pool while having a philosophical discussion that lays out the film's themes. The younger man (Robert Pattinson) argues that the tragedy of the recently ended great war occurred because, “not that one man had the courage to be evil, but that so many have not the courage to be good.”

Repost: The Past (May 30th and 31st at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[THE PAST screens Friday May 30th at 5:00 pm and Saturday May 31st at 6:45 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Pamela Zoslov

Iranian writer and director Asghar Farhadi's 2011 film A SEPARATION, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, was a taut domestic drama that encompassed issues of family, culture and religion. His newest, THE PAST (Le Passé), is a somewhat less absorbing domestic drama without the earlier film's cultural weight.

THE PAST, in French and set in Paris, concerns the return of the Iranian-born Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa) to Paris to finalize his divorce from his French wife, Marie (Bérénice Bejo, from THE ARTIST). While staying at Marie's house, Ahmad is drawn into an intense drama involving Marie, her children and her boyfriend, Samir (Tahar Rahim), whom she plans to marry.

The Past (opens February 7th at the Cedar Lee Theatre)

[THE PAST opens in Cleveland on Friday February 7th exclusively at the Cedar Lee Theatre.]

Review by Pamela Zoslov

Iranian writer and director Asghar Farhadi's 2011 film A SEPARATION, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, was a taut domestic drama that encompassed issues of family, culture and religion. His newest, THE PAST (Le Passé), is a somewhat less absorbing domestic drama without the earlier film's cultural weight.

THE PAST, in French and set in Paris, concerns the return of the Iranian-born Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa) to Paris to finalize his divorce from his French wife, Marie (Bérénice Bejo, from THE ARTIST). While staying at Marie's house, Ahmad is drawn into an intense drama involving Marie, her children and her boyfriend, Samir (Tahar Rahim), whom she plans to marry.

Populaire (opens in Cleveland October 4th exclusively at Chagrin Cinemas)

 [POPULAIRE opens in Cleveland on Friday October 4th exclusively at Chagrin Cinemas.]

Review by Pamela Zoslov

The clack-clack-clack-ding! that punctuates Régis Roinsard's POPULAIRE sets off pleasant waves of nostalgia, if, like me, you miss the satisfying sounds and feeling of a manual typewriter. A stylistic and thematic hommage to American romantic comedies of the late 1950s, the movie tells the story of Rose Pamphyle (Déborah François), a shy young woman from a Normandy village who, tired of working in her father's general store and unwilling to marry the son of the town mechanic, dreams of being a secretary. She practices tirelessly on a portable Triumph typewriter. According to Rose, “A secretary means being modern.”