August 2001

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Features

#Café Society

A new French comedy about a girlish do-gooder is outselling Hollywood and attracting praise from politicians of both left and right. Ginette Vincendeau asks what Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amlie Poulain tells us about the way the French would like to see themselves.

#Mr Pink, Mr Indie, Mr Shhh

A favourite of the Coens and Tarantino, Steve Buscemi is the king of indie actors. As he directs his second film Animal Factory, Philip Kemp dissects the jittery unease and querulous yammer that have animated a string of losers and nobodies.

Run Lara Run

Lara Croft Tomb Raider offers the twin spectacles of short shorts and big guns. No wonder its makers don't need to give their ass-kicking female action hero dialogue or character, says Kate Stables. Plus David McCarthy counts the cost of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

Good Afternoon Vietnam

Tran Anh Hung's At the Height of Summer captures three adult sisters at different stages in their sexual development. Geoffrey Macnab talks to the director about Hanoi's gentle streets, the sensuality of food and his debt to Francis Bacon.

Urban Legends: London

From Brief Encounter to The Third Man, 40s London was a golden age. Tom Ryall explores how wartime and its discontents fuelled a new prestige cinema and why audiences still preferred tinsel trash.

Selected reviews

#Film of the Month: Gohatto

Nagisa Oshima's Gohatto tells of sex and swordsmanship among the samurai. Philip Strick unveils its layers of meaning

#The Isle

#Parole Officer, The

Reviews in this issue:

  • The Children's Midsummer Night's Dream
  • Dr. Dolittle 2
  • Ed Gein
  • Evolution
  • The Farewell
  • Film of the Month: Gohatto
  • Help! I'm a Fish
  • The In Crowd
  • Inbetweeners
  • Intimacy
  • The Isle
  • The Isle
  • The Ladies Man
  • Lara Croft Tomb Raider
  • Maelström
  • Mar, El
  • Me You Them
  • Me You Them
  • The Nine Lives of Tomas Katz
  • Parole Officer, The
  • Pokémon 3 Spell of the Unknown
  • Possible Worlds
  • When Love Comes
Last Updated: 20 Dec 2011