South America
Neruda, review - 'poetry and politics'Friday, 07 April 2017
Chilean director Pablo Larrain has described Neruda as a “false biopic”, and it’s a film that surprises on many levels in its presentation of Pablo Neruda, the great poet who is his country’s best-known cultural figure. It captivates for the scope... Read more... |
The Lost City of ZTuesday, 21 March 2017
Percy Fawcett: does the name ring a bell? He ought by rights to sit in the pantheon of boys’ own explorers alongside Cook and Ross, Parry and Franklin, Livingstone and Mungo Park, Scott and Shackleton. Either side of the Great War, he returned again... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Endless PoetrySaturday, 04 March 2017
This is psychohistory: an attempt to heal Alejandro Jodorowsky’s turbulent Forties youth by reimagining it. The 88-year-old director of the acid Western El Topo, which was loved by John Lennon, still plans a sequel to that surreal, midnight movie... Read more... |
The ClanFriday, 16 September 2016
Latin America has learnt from harsh experience just what the legacy of dictatorship involves, when the structure itself may have been dismantled but the psychology that it engendered remains. It’s a subject that has been tackled by many of the... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Embrace of the SerpentTuesday, 06 September 2016
The jungle, a region of Edenic fantasy and unspeakable terrors, has always fed the white man’s imagination as well as kindled his greed. Not surprisingly, this is rich ground for the movies – a place beyond time, the home of noble savages and an El... Read more... |
theartsdesk Radio Show 15Saturday, 02 July 2016
Another splendidly eclectic globalist radio show hosted by Peter Culshaw. The show's featured album of the month is the impeccable The Woman at The End Of The World by the veteran Brazilian songstress Elza Soares. We have remixed desert blues,... Read more... |
The ClubSaturday, 26 March 2016
The Chilean director Pablo Larrain completed his loose trilogy about his country confronting the legacy of its Pinochet years four years ago with No. Striking a distinctly upbeat note after the two films that had preceded it, Tony Romero and Post... Read more... |
The Encounter, BarbicanWednesday, 17 February 2016
Actor and director Simon McBurney’s one-man Complicite show has arrived in London after gathering plaudits in Edinburgh and elsewhere last year – before setting off again on a nationwide and European tour. It’s the story of a much more adventurous... Read more... |
theartsdesk Radio Show 10Saturday, 12 September 2015
Listen to the latest edition of Peter Culshaw’s peripatetic round-up of some recent hot global music releases, including some re-releases of old classics and yet-to-be unleashed tracks including a fair chunk from South America. For your listening... Read more... |
The Dance of RealityWednesday, 19 August 2015
The British release of the first film made by Alejandro Jodorowsky since 1990’s The Rainbow Thief is an event. Although the Chile-born director disowned that, his reputation was secured with El Topo (1970), The Holy Mountain (1973) and consolidated... Read more... |
SunsetFriday, 29 May 2015
1972, a South American revolution, seen through the eyes of a cleaner. Sunset neatly side-steps the usual banana republic videogame clichés by shifting focus. You are neither the Generalissimo lording it over a strategy game, nor the first-person... Read more... |
ChappieFriday, 06 March 2015
An innocent is corrupted in South African director Neill's Blomkamp's third feature (co-written with his wife Terri Tatchell), but the kid in question is far from what you'd expect. Set in the near future, it focuses on a reprogrammed police robot... Read more... |
