Word: cinema
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...Pashtun, an ethnic-minority group numbering some 39 million along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Local producers built a formidable movie industry that served up a formulaic diet of violence and sexism (but no sex) to Pashtun populations on both sides of the border. This uniquely Pashtun take on exploitation cinema was hardly the stuff of international film festivals --"Those films are so horrible, they should be banned," quips University of Peshawar professor Shah Jehan--but it was an authentic expression of Pashtun culture celebrated by thousands of moviegoers every day. Now the industry has gone underground or moved to cities...
...Yacoubian Building, which sold some half a million copies and was adapted into a box-office hit starring Arab cinema's top actors, is a brilliant depiction of the troubles plaguing contemporary Egypt. The saga of the inhabitants of a downtown Cairo apartment building, it examines the historical, social and political vicissitudes that Al Aswany believes have left the country in a state of physical and moral ruin. One character, Zaki Bey, is the scion of an aristocratic clan, an Egyptian Romeo who uses his Yacoubian Building office for lecherous assignations, oblivious to the crumbling edifice around...
...visual style, the movie has a formal rigor familiar to the serious European cinema: just about every scene, no matter how long, is shot without cutting. (The nearly two-hour film has fewer than 70 shots.) That's often an enervating strategy, but here it works marvelously, either forcing two characters together as reluctant conspirators or isolating each in his or her predicament. Bebe's examination of Gabi, and his insertion of the syringe, is accomplished in one harrowing shot. There's a bustling scene, at the birthday party of Otilia's boyfriend's mother, that becomes a kind...
...Director Thomas Langmann - who co-helmed the movie with fellow Frenchman Frédéric Forestier - told the daily Le Parisien that the challenge this time is to "compete with American cinema, without betraying our own identity". To broaden the appeal, he also cast stars from across Europe, like Spaniard Santiago Segura, Germany's Michael Herbig, as well as Australian wrestling colossus Nathan Jones. "We could either have aimed to target 60 million viewers in France alone, or 300 million potential viewers throughout Europe. I decided to go for the second option," Langmann said...
...been made for audiences ranging from the Spanish coast to the Urals, passing through the Acropolis," wrote La Croix. "The result is a flat dialogue, jokes which are barely funny and a sluggish pace." Le Monde described it as a "vacuous gigantic stewpot," L'Express called it "French cinema's first bling-bling film," while Libération said it was a "tragic potion...