BFI | Sight & Sound | September 2010

September 2010

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Features

Restoration comedy: Abbas Kiarostami’s ‘Certified Copy’

Both a romantic comedy and a vehicle for Juliette Binoche, Certified Copy seems a departure for Abbas Kiarostami, but its playful ambiguity makes it very much his work. Geoff Andrew talks to the Iranian director and his star

Out of the past: Frantisek Vlácil

Less celebrated internationally than his near contemporaries Forman and Menzel, the late Czech director Frantisek Vlácil’s visionary medieval epics have recently been rediscovered in the West. But there was more to him than that, finds Michael Brooke

One for the road: Bob Rafelson and ‘Five Easy Pieces’

Forty years ago, ‘Five Easy Pieces’ made Jack Nicholson a star, and seemed to promise a new era of thoughtful American film-making. David Thomson looks back at a masterpiece, and talks to its director, Bob Rafelson

Lost and found: Mothra

Foot-high singers and a giant godlike moth made pioneering Japanese monster movie Mothra too wonderfully weird for America, says Kim Newman

Cover feature: Latin American Cinema

Over the past decade high-profile Latin American successes such as The Motorcycle Diaries and City of God have broken out internationally beyond the arthouse circuit. But they are only the tip of the iceberg as an astonishing new wave of daring yet vividily real film-making has swept from Mexico to Chile. Sight & Sound highlights the key Latin American films since the start of the renaissance in 1998

PLUS No turning back: Leading Argentine critic Sergio Wolf surveys the extraordinary recent Latin American cinema explosion

PLUS The view from downstairs: Mar Diestro-Dópido asks director Sebastián Silva why he used his parents’ own home as location for his hothouse drama The Maid

PLUS Beyond law and order: Demetrios Matheou talks to Juan José Campanella about Oscar-winner The Secret in Their Eyes

In the name of love

The fourth film from the remarkable South Korean director Bong Joon-ho, Mother is both a crime thriller and an exploration of the mysterious bond between mother and son. He talks to James Bell, and talks us through the original storyboards for five key scenes in the film

PLUS The wind will carry him: Adrian Martin compares the two halves of Kiarostami’s career

One for the road

Forty years ago, Five Easy Pieces made Jack Nicholson a star and seemed to promise a new era of thoughtful US film-making. David Thomson looks back at a masterpiece, and talks to its director, Bob Rafelson

PLUS The wind will carry him: Adrian Martin compares the two halves of Kiarostami’s career