Tag Archives: Europe

Review no 101: Family Lexicon by Natalia Ginzburg (Italy)

Translated by Jenny McPhee EUROPE “Even though the story is real, I think one should read it as if it were a novel, and therefore not demand of it any more or less than a novel can offer … memory is ephemeral, and … books based on reality are often only faint glimpses and fragments […]

Review no 82: The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza): a film by Paolo Sorrentino (Italy)

EUROPE “To this question, as kids, my friends always gave the same answer. “Pussy.” Whereas I answered, “the smell of old people’s houses”. The question was: “What do you like most, really, in life?” I was destined for sensibility. I was destined to become a writer. I was destined to become Jep Gambardella.“ The Great […]

Review no 76: Loveless (Russian film)

EUROPE Loveless (2017) is a relentlessly bleak Russian film, directed and co-written by Andrei Zvyagintsev. It’s a bit like a Mike Leigh film, but imagine one devoid of humour or any base-level sense of human connection and goodness. Warring couple Zhelya and Boris are breaking up, with little consideration for their 12-year-old son, who they […]