Hugo Blick's follow-up to his sensational The Shadow Line is this equally sensational, timely and incisive look at the Israel-Palestine situation, viewed through the eyes of orphan Jewish business owners Maggie Gyllenhaal and Andrew Buchan, over eight hours.
Gyllenhaal is magnetic: her usually stoical face keeps you guessing whether it will suddenly start laughing, or crying, or even remaining stoical.
With great sound design (the sort you rarely find anywhere), an exciting way of cross-cutting between scenes, dark photography of the politico-noir school of the seventies (think The Parallex View ) and brilliant details, such as the chess piece that lands perfectly upright.
Blick's revitalisation of Stephen Rea is put to good use again. Great strong female characters abound, in particular Lubna Azabal as Gylenhaal's Palestinian friend, Janet McTeer as the expedient boss of MI6, Eve Best an FBI agent, Katherine Parkinson and Linday Duncan. Igal Naor is the suspicious long-term family friend, Tobias Menzies the faithful bodyguard, Nicholas Woodeson the Jewish intelligence guy who plays chess with Rea, and John Mackay the great private investigator.
Shot by Zac Nicholson and George Steel, edited by Jason Krasucki (Parade's End, The Shadow Line, Glorious 39, Generation Kill ), music by Martin Phipps.
Morocco must be getting a lot of location work these days.
No comments:
Post a Comment