anne-johnorr Reviews

Felicia's Journey (1999)

Comments by John Orr, Edinburgh

[9/10 · 13 July 2000]

A chilling portrait of a serial killer whose killings may all be in his imagination. Egoyan uses the unfashionable industrial Birmingham landscape to powerful effect, and Bob Hoskins gives one of the best performances of his career. The use of the car video is extraordinary and the spoof on Hitchcock (Hilditch=Hitch?) with the timeless, culinary kitchen and mum spouting recipes on the box is deeply and darkly funny. The best British movie to be ignored in 1999 and as a Canadian director, Egoyan has a great eye and ear for the sights and sounds of the English city. Great stuff.

Pusher (1996)

comments by John Orr, Edinurgh Scotland

[8/10 · 7 July 2000]

Pusher is a visceral low-budget movie set on the streets of Copenhagen. Though its director Nicholas Winding Refn is not a part of Dogme 95 the film uses many of the Dogme maxims to better effect. The plot is deceptively simple. Frank (Kim Bodnia)is double-crossed on a deal and has a couple of days to make good the covering loan to a sadistic Balkan gangster. The film's speed rhythms convey the nightmare of time running out, luck running out, and life, shot with hand-held camera in natural light going around in circles until suddenly damnation beckons. Tougher than Tarantino or Trainspotting, it pulls no punches and its running gags fail to draw the sting. One of the great city films of the 1990s.

Chungking Express (1994)

comments by john orr, edinburgh, scotland

[9/10 · 7 July 2000]

This is a film about rushing in order to stand still, about never finding the right person at the right time and about how the world is divided between those eat at fast food joints and those who serve in them, only, in the passage of time for the customers to become servers and the servers customers. The ultimate merry-go-round for the information age, seen with a trained narcotic eye.