New Moon is nothing if not an international advertisement for the hungry virtues of virginity and young people can’t get enough of it
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Theatre
A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
Restaurants
Kitchen W8 is a bargain for this area, if such sophistication is what you crave
Kitchen W8
Too long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effects
This is a peculiar play and does not work for me. Some of it is very funny but there are real flaws
Alex has a strong powerful voice and was faultless, she is far better now than she was on the X-Factor
London,
Nick Curtis's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Sergei Bodrov.
Cast: Tadanobu Asano, Honglei Sun, Khulan Chuluun
Description: Temudgin joins his beloved father Esugei on an expedition to choose his future bride. En route, Temudgin falls under the spell of Borte and chooses her as his intended. Tribal rival Targutai poisons and kills Esugei but Temudgin is forbidden from seeking vengeance until he is older. Twenty years later, Temudgin prepares to set up home with his bride, Borte, except a fierce clan kidnaps her and Temudgin gives chase, aided by his blood brother, Jamukha.
Country: GER/KAZAK/RUS/MONG. 2007. 125mins
Irresistible force: Mongol seals the resurgence of Russia's modern film-makers on the international scene
Critics have rated Sergei Bodrov’s Mongol as a historical epic, alert to the sweeping beauties of the Russian steppes and the ethical codes of a forgotten martial civilisation.
But it’s much more than that. For one thing, it’s a great romance. Temudjin, the man who becomes the great Khan, spends most of the two hours’ running time trying to win back Borte, the wife he chooses as a nine-year-old, against insuperable odds. He adopts the children sired on her by other men, follows her judgment in matters of battleground honour and stays true to her during the years when one or both of them is enslaved.
This is remarkable enough. But Mongol is perhaps most significant in the way it seals the resurgence of Russian film as an international force.
Asked to name a Russian film director of global renown, most people would think first of the great Soviet auteur Sergei Eisenstein and find themselves hard pressed to come up with anyone of note since Andrei Tarkovsky, who made his finest film, Solaris, in 1972 and who died in 1986. But like the country’s rouble-rich oligarchs, a host of newly confident film-makers are making their presence felt on the international scene and looking at their homeland with an unflinching eye.
On the arthouse front, we’ve already had Alexandr Sokurov’s remarkable, single-take historical journey through the Hermitage in Russian Ark (2002) and Andrey Zvyaganitsev’s tale of fathers and sons, The Return (2003).
Last year saw the UK and American release of Fyodor Bondarchuk’s 9th Company, a remarkable, full-throated action movie that examined Russia’s war in Afghanistan from the perspective of a group of mismatched raw recruits.
Recently, too, the West has seen Timur Bekmambetov’s Night Watch (which became the most commercially successful Russian film ever in 2004) and Day Watch (2006), movies that contained in their depiction of warring supernatural groups a critique of the divisive, aggressive nature of urban Russian life today. A third instalment is scheduled for 2009.
Mongol, also planned as the first in a trilogy, looks at a time when a member of one of Russia’s many ethnic groups rose to conquer much of the known world, and takes on blockbusters like Indiana Jones on their own epic terms.
It wasn’t long ago that German film enjoyed a renaissance with historically reflective films such as Downfall and The Lives of Others. Now, at long last, the Russians are coming.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
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