An awesome and ridiculous film that leaves you thrilled beyond the point of your natural endurance
2012
Theatre
The show has suddenly become quite wonderful, and the galvanising factor is the terrific stage debut of Melanie C
Blood Brothers
Music
The British pop music industry may be eating itself but if Muse are the pick of what it can offer the world in 2010 then British music is in rude health indeed
Muse
I was smitten by both Gilberts enormous luxuriant moustache and the intelligence and nuance of this highly entertaining play
I totally recommend Babbo to anyone who is looking for really good and traditional Italian food
Always been a fan but never seen them live. I was ecstatic to be part of this epic event. WOW!
London,
Derek Malcolm's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Peter Strickland.
Cast: Hilda Peter, Tibor Palffy, Norbert Tanko, Melinda Kantor, Sebastian Marina, Roberto Giacomello, Laszlo Matray, Antal Borlan
Description: Katalin Varga is cast out by her husband Zsigmond and the other members of the village, leaving her with no choice but no seek out the biological father of her son, Orban. Taking the boy with her under false pretences, Katalin seeks revenge for the ills of the past, returning to a place from 11 years earlier which emotionally scarred her for life.
Country: ROM/UK/HUN. 2008. 85mins
In search of his father: Norbert Tanko as Orban Varga
Reading-born Peter Strickland says he was so invisible to the film establishment that he had to go to Romania to make his first feature. Now he lives in Hungary. He scraped together enough money for this impressive debut from several European sources.
A striking Romanian actress, Hilda Péter, plays Katalin, a young woman banished by her husband and her village when it is discovered that her son, Orbán (Norbert Tankó), was fathered by another man. Taking the boy with her, she travels through the Carpathians on a horse and cart to find the father.
It is a dangerous journey. Those she meets seem threatening if not overtly hostile. Eventually she stops at a village she vowed she would never set foot in again. We guess something terrible happened to her there a decade ago but she is befriended by a local (the excellent Romanian actor Tibor Pálffy) who may or may not be somehow implicated.
Apart from looking extraordinary, thanks to the naturally brooding beauty of the locations and Mark Gyori’s eloquent cinematography, the film has an original soundtrack from Steven Stapleton and Geoff Cox which adds a great deal to the atmosphere Strickland generates.
Above all, Péter is superb, pointing up without over-dramatising Katalin’s struggle to exorcise tragedy. The whole is like a folk tale crossed with a thriller and road movie. Without a doubt it is one of the best new British films of the year, if you can justly call it fully British. And it shows that there are some homegrown directors who will never take no for an answer.
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