Film Festivals 1989
Another wonderfully eclectic line-up this year including the radiant "Bagdad Cafe", Jan Svankmajer's surreal "Alice", David Cronenberg's superb psychological offering "Dead Ringers", the acclaimed "sex, lies, and videotape" and the fascinating "Man Facing Southeast" (pictured).
Alice (1988)
7.5/10
Director: Jan Svankmajer
Starring: Kristyna Kohoutova, Camilla Powers
Jan Svankmajer, the Czech master of animation, has fulfilled a lifetime ambition in this interpretation of Alice in Wonderland. Svankmajer's Alice rem... Read more
Au Revoir, Les Enfants (1987)
8/10
Director: Louis Malle
Starring: Gaspard Manesse, Raphael Fejto, Francine Racette
'Goodbye, Children'. Louis Malle returns to the days of the German occupation during World War II to recount the story of friendship between two schoo... Read more
Bagdad Cafe (1987)
7.5/10
Director: Percy Adlon
Starring: Marianne Sagebrecht, CCH Pounder, Jack Palance
This enchanting and affectionate fable unveils, in a series of wonderful vignettes, the developing friendship between several oddball characters. Mari... Read more
Celia (1989)
6.9/10
Director: Ann Turner
Starring: Mary-Anne Fahey, Nicholas Eadie, Rebecca Smart, Victoria Longley
An unusual but captivating tale of a young girl's fears and fantasies that triumphs over considerable odds in telling us something fresh about the mag... Read more
Dead Ringers (1988)
7.3/10
Director: David Cronenberg
Starring: Jeremy Irons, Genevieve Bujold, Heidi Von Palleske
David Cronenberg does it again in this psychological horror film starring Jeremy Irons as a pair of disturbed, identical twin gynaecologists. A techni... Read more
Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)
7.5/10
Director: Terence Davies
Starring: Freda Dowie, Pete Postlethwaite, Angela Walsh
Director Terence Davies reconstructs the lives of a working class family in Liverpool in postwar England through the use of popular songs. Over 40 hit... Read more
Drowning By Numbers (1988)
7.3/10
Director: Peter Greenaway
Starring: Bernard Hill, Joan Plowright, Juliet Stevenson
An ironic black comedy that celebrates the English obsession with game playing and their love of wit, verve and the multi-layered linguistic and picto... Read more
Eat the Rich (1987)
6/10
Director: Peter Richardson
Starring: Lanah Pellay, Nosher Powell, Fiona Richmond, Kathy Burke, Robbie Coltrane, Katri...
In direct opposition to the advice of Jonathan Swift, (whose 'Modest Proposal' of 1729, suggested the Irish poor sell their children as livestock to e... Read more
Ghosts... of the Civil Dead (1988)
7.1/10
Director: John Hillcoat
Starring: Dave Field, Mike Bishop, Chris De Rose, Nick Cave
An explosive prison film set in an awful warning near-future. Stoked by the authorities who want to trigger police-state powers, unrest grows in a hig... Read more
Henry V (Olivier) (1944)
7.7/10
Director: Laurence Olivier
Starring: Laurence Olivier, Leslie Banks, Robert Newton, Esmond Knight, Renee Asherson, Fe...
'Henry V' is one of Shakespeare's most compelling historical plays. Laurence Olivier won a special Oscar for outstanding achievement as an actor, prod... Read more