DUNDEE UNIVERSITY REVIEW OF THE ARTS

Much of the humour of I’m So Excited runs the risk of being lost in translation. To Spanish speakers the original title means “the fleeing lovers” or “the passenger lovers”. As always, director Pedro Almodóvar aims to shock. Fans and critics of his work will know what to expect but Almodóvar virgins beware: you will find yourself confronted not just by sexual references as found in his early work Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), but with graphic sexual scenes more akin to his later film Bad Education (2004).

"Dolphins pulling knickers off girls, for goodness' sake – what’s not to like?" This line, delivered without a hint of irony by Paul Raymond (Steve Coogan), encapsulates the lifestyle which Michael Winterbottom’s latest film portrays: sex, class, and money, all somehow indistinguishable from empty kitsch. The Look of Love is a biopic of Raymond, once Britain’s richest man, who made his fortune through risqué live shows, and softcore men’s magazines.

Since 1995’s blistering La Haine (a sort of Never Mind the Bollocks for the diverse alienated Parisian youth of the 1990s), French writer/director MathieuKassowitz’s output has been marked by an almost obstinate deviation from the anarchistic themes of his debut. Rebellion (L’ordre et la morale) marks a return of sorts to the politically charged subject matter of La Haine. Here though, Kassowitz exchanges  urban Paris for the beautiful French colony of New Caledonia (“France” but “25,000km away”) where injustice is rife and hope wears thin.

Danish director Susanne Bier won an Oscar in 2011 for her film In A Better World, a powerful story of bullying and revenge.  Bier's latest offering, All You Need is Love, is an altogether different kettle of fish.  It’s a feelgood rom-com  in which  hairdresser Ida (Trine Dyrholm) returns home from chemotherapy treatment and a mastectomy, uncertain of the long-term prognosis, to find husband Leif (Kim Bodnia) in flagrante with Tilde (Christiane Schaumberg-Mueller), a much younger woman with whom he is having an affair.

The Place Beyond The Pines arrives at the cinema with a weight of expectation. Thankfully, from the offset, The Place Beyond The Pines delivers a beautifully created story which is woven across different character arcs to form a movie about relationships; but whilst Blue Valentine focuses on the romantic angle, The Place Beyond The Pines chooses to centre on the dynamics of fathers and sons.

Victor Hugo’s mammoth 1,488-page novel Les Misérables was highly anticipated on publication in 1862. Over a century later in 1980, at the Palais des Sports in Paris, Robert Hossien debuted his world famous musical adaption. Now, several film, radio and television serials later, Tom Hooper tackles the elusive epic.