(Click on film's title to read SK's original review.)
After the Wedding. In Copenhagen a man returns from a longish absence and is invited to a wedding. He makes a starting discovery about the bride. The twist is a bit twisted, but all of the film is decently acted, breezily transported, and well shot. (Reviewed 04.23.07)
Amazing Grace. This could have been a mere history lesson, but it's a good historical drama. The English abolitionist William Wilberforce, at the start of the 19th century, fights to abolish the slave trade. Human beings, not mannequins, inhabit this vivid picture. ( 03.19.07)
Cobra Verde. The last picture that Werner Herzog made with Klaus Kinski, just lately released. Kinski plays a Brazilian outlaw sent by his government to Africa to buy slaves. The film is not strictly rational, but the film-making--Herzog's directing and editing, Kinski's acting--are eye-popping. (04.23.07)
Private Fears in Public Places. Alain Resnais's latest has none of the aesthetic adventure for which he became famous, but it is an account of several Paris bourgeois lives told with endearing smoothness and delightful skill. Good enough for a director of 84. (04.23.07)
--SK
By Stanley Kauffmann