Movie review - "The Last Step" (2012) **1/2

The Iranians seem to love their family melodrama - the female star of A Separation pops up in this tale of a married couple: the man dies seemingly of a heart attack, and what did their doctor friend have to do with it. For a while I didn't mind this - it has non linear narrative, so we go back in time when the husband was alive and find out what happened. It felt as though it went on too long and got too confusing, though. Tehran is shot ugly, again - surely it's a better looking country than this?

Movie review - "A Separation" (2011) ***1/2

The art house darling of 2011-12, winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, a critical and festival fave... it's still one of the most stressful films I've ever seen. It reminds me of Crash where all the plots could have been resolved by politeness but instead bickering, a sense of honour and arguments lead to tragedy. However Crash was mixed up with moments of brightness and hope, this is all pretty grim. A middle class couple separate - he gets the kid and so needs to hire a housekeeper to look after his Alzheimer's ridden dad but she's pregnant and has to keep ducking out, and they argue and she loses the child and he's up for murder. That's a very brief description of what is quite an involved plot - it reminded me of good old fashioned intergenerational melodrama that was popular on stage and Australian cinema in the 1910s - family stories, with rich and poor, pregnancy, abusive, hot headed husbands, the most sensible people are women, the destructive influence of religion and honour. I think part of this is why it's been a popular film. That and the fact there is a real story - no repetition, each scene progresses the action - and the characters are three dimensional.

Well acted across the board, it all feels very real. It's an ugly looking movie - the city they live in is dirty and shabby, no one wears nice costumes, it's all dingy and bland. (You long for someone to visit a park, or a room with green plants or something). I couldn't help feeling it was a little over praised though.

Movie review – “My Last Valentine in Beirut” (2011) ½

The first Arabic film in 3D – it’s from Lebanon and it’s terrible. It’s about a prostitute and there are all these scenes with long takes and bad acting which just go on and on. It’s another movie supposedly about the degradation of women which just has lots of woman degradation. I admit I walked out of the last half hour, I just couldn’t hack it. The photography is good as is the production design.

Movie review – “Jihad for Love” (2007) ***1/2

The concept of this documentary is incredibly powerful – can you be gay and a Muslim at the same time (as in a real Muslim, who prays and believes and everything) – and there are some great characters: an Egyptian who was thrown in gaol in an anti-gay purge, a Moroccan lesbian who even now thinks she has a problem that needs to be overcome, some Iranian refugees, etc. It feels at times more like a collection of snap shots though than a series of stories. Still, very well made and moving.