Robert Tanitch reviews the latest DVD's
By Robert Tanitch - 19/12/2011
SEPARATION (Artificial Eye). Impressive Iranian film. A husband (Peyman Moaadi) is accused of pushing a servant down stairs and causing her to fall and have a miscarriage. A series of verbal and physical confrontations between the two families - one middle-class, the other working-class – follows, tearing them apart. Who is lying? Who is telling the truth? This Iranian domestic drama, directed by Asghar Farhadi, is totally involving. It is the moral complexity and the fascinating insights into Islamic legal process and justice which makes the film so engrossing. Moaadi is extremely convincing.
THE DEVIL’S DOUBLE (Icon). Even Saddam Hussein couldn’t stand his son Uday and thought he should have strangled him at birth. Latif Yahi was forced to act as the psychotic Uday’s body-double. Lee Tamahori’s fictionalised fact is disappointingly superficial; but Dominic Cooper, acting both roles, and good in both, inevitably, has more fun playing the flamboyant pervert who rapes schoolgirls.
L’AMOUR FOU (StudioCanal). This limited, yet nevertheless interesting, documentary about Yves Saint Laurent (who was into drugs, alcoholism and depression as well as haute couture), is narrated by Pierre Berge, his partner (business and lover) and describes the sale of their extraordinary art collection. I could have done with more information about the fashion house they founded and the fashions he created and less about the art they collected.
THE GUARD (StudioCanal). A racist Irish cop (Brendan Gleeson), a big, burly rogue, a right trouble-maker, who is into hard-drinking and escorts, is joined by the FBI (here represented by a totally wasted Don Cheadle) to hunt out drug-dealers in Ireland. The result is a very poor Irish comedy-thriller; but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Irish TV doesn’t make a TV series about the bad cop with Gleeson.
GO TO BLAZES (StudioCanal). Dave King, Daniel Massey and Norman Rossington are criminals disguised as fireman. A lot of other well-known names, such as Robert Morley, Maggie Smith, Dennis Price, appear in this terrible 50-year-old British comedy, and none of them is remotely funny.