Film Festivals 1990
This punter believes this was the best film festival ever to grace Christchurch's screens (in this case the old Regent Theatre). The entire line-up had absolutely no deadwood. A few of the great many highlights included Jane Campion's "An Angel At My Table" and "Sweetie", Akira Kurosawa's "Dreams", Hal Hartley's "The Unbelievable Truth" the acclaimed "Cinema Paradiso", the marvellous "Jesus of Montreal", from the Netherlands came the sleek psycho-chiller "The Vanishing" and from Mexico came Alex Jodorowsky's unforgettable "Santa Sangre" (right).
An Angel At My Table (1990)
7.6/10
Director: Jane Campion
Starring: Kerry Fox, Karen Fergusson, Alexia Keogh, Iris Churn
Jane Campion's remarkable award-winning film based on the autobiographical writing of Janet Frame is a portrait of a sweet-natured, imaginative, painf... Read more
Cinema Paradiso: Director's Cut (1988)
8.5/10
Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Starring: Salvatore Cascio, Philippe Noiret, Jacques Perrin
A charming, bittersweet tribute to the power of movies which won 1989's Best Foreign Film Academy Award. A filmmaker returns to his Sicilian hometown... Read more
The Vanishing (1988)
7.8/10
Director: George Sluizer
Starring: Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Johanna Ter Steege
A sleek psycho-chiller with an absorbing plot about the vanishing without a trace of a young woman at a gas station, and the terrifying battle of wits... Read more
Jesus Of Montreal (1989)
7.5/10
Director: Denys Arcand
Starring: Catherine Wilkening, Lothaire Bluteau
The marvellous, emotional and humourous story of modern day hypocrisy, as experienced by a group of actors who stage a radical interpretation of the l... Read more
Last Exit To Brooklyn (1989)
6.8/10
Director: Uli Edel
Starring: Stephen Lang, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Burt Young
A powerful and disturbing adaptation of Hubert Selby's controversial novel. Set in Brooklyn in 1952, the story centres around a massive strike by fact... Read more
The Handmaid's Tale (1990)
6/10
Director: Volker Schlondorff
Starring: Natasha Richardson, Aidan Quinn, Faye Dunaway, Robert Duvall
A stylish adaptation of Margaret Atwood's novel of the not-so-distant future where certain young women are used to bear 'pure' children for the milita... Read more
Cinema Paradiso (Special Edition) (1988)
8.5/10
Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Starring: Jacques Perrin, Philippe Noiret, Leopoldo Trieste
Winner of 1989's Best Foreign Film Academy Award this bittersweet drama sees a filmmaker returns to his hometown in Sicily for the first time in 30 ye... Read more
Henry V (Branagh) (1989)
7.7/10
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Starring: Kenneth Branagh, Paul Scofield, Derek Jacobi, Ian Holm, Emma Thompson, Alec McCo...
An energetic, extraordinarily well-acted and perfectly cast version of Shakespeare's play adapted and directed by tyro-star Kenneth Branagh. Henry V i... Read more
Heathers (1988)
7.3/10
Director: Michael Lehmann
Starring: Shannen Doherty, Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Kim Walker, Lisanne Falk
Welcome to Westerburg High, where Veronica Sawyer (Winona Ryder) is beginning to tire of her membership in the powerful yet cruel clique of 'Heathers'... Read more
Black Narcissus (1947)
8/10
Director: Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell
Starring: Deborah Kerr, David Farrar, Sabu, Jean Simmons
Plagued by uncertainties and worldly desires, five Protestant missionary nuns, led by Deborah Kerr's Sister Clodagh, struggle to establish a school in... Read more