Autumn Season 2008 - Tuesdays from 4th November

Tuesday 4th November - Persepolis  (12A)
Dir: Vincent Paronnaud Marjane Satrapi (France 2007, 96 mins)

Moving, perceptive and extremely funny film based on Marjane’s comic-strip autobiography about growing up in Iran under the Shah and the ayatollahs. Spirited and funny, Persepolis deftly combines the personal and the political as the history of a feisty Iranian from childhood to adulthood takes place with a background that includes a revolution and a war. The basic style is simple, like an animated woodcut; it is highly effective and the black and white suits the country's latterday austerity.

Tuesday 11th November - Honeydripper (PG)
Dir: John Sayles (USA 2007, 118 mins)

John Sayles piles on loads of atmosphere in a very relaxed drama set in 1950 Alabama. Danny Glover is the owner of a bar featuring an elderly blues singer, rapidly being upstaged by a nearby juke joint. Deeply in debt, he plans a Saturday night show with new guitar sensation Guitar Sam. Honeydripper is a warm-hearted celebration of communal life, but it is far from being an exercise in nostalgia. It is in effect a story of continuity and social change, an allegory that combines realism and fantasy in showing the way rock 'n' roll emerged from jazz, gospel music and the blues.

Tuesday 18th November - The Orphanage (15)
Dir: Juan Antonia Bayona (Mexico/Spain 2007, 105 mins)

Haunting and heartbreaking, The Orphanage delivers a double whammy of chills both real and supernatural. Set in a crumbling children's home recently reopened by ex-resident Laura, this Spanish haunted house movie begins its assault after Laura's son Simón vanishes on a sunny afternoon. For the most part it's more suspense than horror, but it's full of a fetid atmosphere that seeps into the consciousness.

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