REVIEW: Schlafkrankheit [Sleeping Sickness] [2011]

My fate is in your hands. Is colonialism dead? It’s a question for which you would instantly answer “No” and yet still wonder if perhaps such a binary response is too simplistic. You would have to define colonialism and whether or not actual, recognized control of a land is the same as a more insidious relationship wherein you’re the puppet master of a “free” nation. Think missionary work or medical aid. Think money flowing in to improve conditions and introduce new ways of living yet unseen on its own. Let’s…

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VIFF11 REVIEW: Dernier étage gauche gauche [Top Floor, Left Wing] [2010]

“Hey, it’s pork. That’s provocation!” How do you turn a hostage situation concerning cocaine, eviction notices, and Algerian assassins into a stage for bureaucratic ineptitude and slum reform? Ask Angelo Cianci because his film Dernier étage gauche gauche [Top Floor, Left Wing] does it and more. A darkly comic take on generally serious circumstances, a normal day in the life of bailiff François Etcheveria (Hippolyte Girardot) becomes one he’ll never forget. The first apartment of twelve on his list to evict and catalogue property for compensation, no one could have…

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