Painter/actor/director Bouli Lanners’ third feature, The Giants, which premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, finally gets an understated bow on DVD. Described as a Huckleberry Finn style adventure about three young boys left to their own devices, such lofty literary comparisons unfortunately do Lanners’ film no favors, as this by the numbers escapade doesn’t quite manage to make an impression, despite some pristine cinematography capturing quiet countryside desolation.
Brothers Zak (Zacharie Chasseriaud) and Seth (Martin Nissen) have been abandoned by their mother and are running out of what little money she left behind for them as they stay in their late grandfather’s house in the country. The boys, aged 15 and 13, drive around the countryside, befriending another loner boy, Danny (Paul Bartel), who is often abused physically by his older brother. While Seth retains a cell phone upon which the boys’ mother periodically calls only to cruelly...
Brothers Zak (Zacharie Chasseriaud) and Seth (Martin Nissen) have been abandoned by their mother and are running out of what little money she left behind for them as they stay in their late grandfather’s house in the country. The boys, aged 15 and 13, drive around the countryside, befriending another loner boy, Danny (Paul Bartel), who is often abused physically by his older brother. While Seth retains a cell phone upon which the boys’ mother periodically calls only to cruelly...
- 6/11/2013
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
From indieWIRE's Peter Knegt comes word that Karl Markovics's Atmen (Breathing) has won the Label Europa Cinemas award for best European film in this year's Directors' Fortnight, while Bouli Lanners's Les géants (The Giants) has won both the Art Cinema award and the Prix Sacd. "The Art Cinema Award is given by the International Confederation of Art Cinemas (Cicae), an art-house association, while Sacd Prize is given to the best French-language film."
"A sober, compelling drama distinguished by its intelligent restraint, controlled visual style and a matter-of-fact observational approach that gives it bracing dramatic integrity, Breathing marks an assured move into directing for Karl Markovics, a veteran Austrian actor who starred in the 2008 Foreign-Language Oscar winner The Counterfeiters," writes David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter. "Whether it’s his own cool compositional eye or that of accomplished cinematographer Martin Gschlacht, Markovics lets us know we’re in sure...
"A sober, compelling drama distinguished by its intelligent restraint, controlled visual style and a matter-of-fact observational approach that gives it bracing dramatic integrity, Breathing marks an assured move into directing for Karl Markovics, a veteran Austrian actor who starred in the 2008 Foreign-Language Oscar winner The Counterfeiters," writes David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter. "Whether it’s his own cool compositional eye or that of accomplished cinematographer Martin Gschlacht, Markovics lets us know we’re in sure...
- 5/20/2011
- MUBI
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