Reviews

In La Gradiva, a modern coming-of-age among ancient ruins

There are so many fantastic French coming-of-age films that to direct one, especially one as self-consciously grand as Marine Atlan’s La Gradiva necessitates contending with that most hallowed of national traditions. In some ways, La Gradiva is an epic-sized version of countryside group portraits like Graduate First or Wild Reeds, following a class of French high school seniors on a field trip to Pompeii just before they receive their college admissions results. Amidst the ruins of the ancient city, the film is about a group of children on the cusp of adulthood who in the process of connecting with ancient tragedy, find themselves confronted with their own mortality.

Festivals Previews

As ever, Orcas Island Film Festival wows with blockbuster line-up of must-see films

In their twelfth year of running a festival on the gem of the San Juan islands, it’s basically a given that the small but mighty Orcas Island Film Festival will quietly drops one of the season’s most complete and compelling film festival lineups of the year. The quality of the program is an embarrassment of riches and it’s basically in our backyard (provided that your backyard has a seaplane or a ferry boat).

Reviews

McKinley’s The Weight is heavy indeed

Set during the great depression, dry earth covering everything, near starvation plaguing more people than it isn’t, and no end it sight leaves Samuel Murphy (Ethan Hawke) and his young whip smart and headstrong daughter Penny (Avy Berry) in dire straights. In a manner of seconds their lives take a nose dive as he throws punches to protect her from predators, but the assault lands him in prison. Promising to be back for her, he takes on any opportunity to lessen his sentence. Time is of the essence, so when the warden of his prison-work camp offers a way to freedom within a week he jumps at it knowing full well it could be life threatening.