BFI | Sight & Sound

May 2008

Please view our back issues page for more information about obtaining previous months issues, dating back to 1995.

Features

Down In The Hole

HBO's cult series The Wire cuts across both sides of the law in its depiction of Baltimore's drug scene. Kent Jones celebrates a 60-hour epic that rises beyond the level of good TV

French Cinema Now: French Exceptions

The range of French film-making is much more extraordinary than the titles that turn up in an art cinema near you. Jonathan Romney unearths some of the riches we're missing

She comes in colours

Is Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky the fluffy comedy critics have hailed or does its portrait of a bubbly London primary-school teacher have a darker edge? Dave Calhoun asks the director about quitting the suburbs, politics and his desire to move on to bigger budgets and a wider canvas

French cinema now: Unbelievable but real: the legacy of '68

Forty years on, the legacy of May '68 is still a topic for heated debate - and who better to line the barricades than France's leading directors and critics? S&S discusses French cinema past and present with Catherine Breillat, Michel Ciment, Jean-Michel Frodon, Eugène Green, Nicolas Klotz and Agnès Varda PLUS Chris Darke puts the events into perspective and Penelope Houston reports on the year the Cannes competition entered meltdown

French cinema now: Abominable glory

Catherine Breillat is the last director you might expect to turn to costume drama - but helped by Asia Argento, she brings sex and sensuality to The Last Mistress. By Jonathan Romney

French cinema now: Intimate connections

Parisian chic or Provençal shtick - how has the French cinema that reaches the UK reflected and shaped our view of life across the Channel? By Lucy Mazdon and Catherine Wheatley

French cinema now: Children of the revolution

Funded and made in France, Marjane Satrapi's film of her graphic novel Persepolis presents a poignant picture of growing up in revolutionary Iran. She talks to Ali Jaafar