The Return of Martin Guerre [1982] – ★★★★ From Hitchcock’s Vertigo [1958] to Mangold’s Identity [2003], there is nothing like a film that makes the audience question the identity of a character, and The Return of Martin Guerre is not only one of those interestingly-premised films, but it is also one based on a true story…
Tag: True Story
“The Imposter” Review
The Imposter (2012) This story would have been nice fiction if it were also not so very true. This awards-winning documentary details the real story of Frederic Bourdin, a French confidence trickster, who impersonated Nicholas Barclay, a boy from Texas, who, in turn, vanished without a trace when he was 13 in 1993. This documentary…
5 Great Films about Real-Life Adventurers and their Journeys
I. Kon-Tiki (2012) Kon-Tiki is an Academy Award nominated adventure film which tells the true story of Thor Heyerdahl (Pal Hagen), a Norwegian adventurer, who sailed around 5000 miles from Peru to Polynesia on a wood raft in 1947 to prove his point that it was possible for pre-Columbian tribes to populate Polynesia from the…
“The Lost City of Z” Review
The Lost City of Z [2016] – ★★★ “There is very little doubt that the forests cover traces of a lost civilisation of a most unsuspected and surprising character” (from a letter of Fawcett to the Royal Geographical Society, December 1921, Grann (2009) at 55). 🌴 Based on a great book by David Grann titled…
4 Intriguing “International Crime” Films
I. Piracy Article 101 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea defines piracy as “any illegal acts of violence or detention… committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or aircraft and directed…on the high seas against another ship or aircraft…”. In 2017, there were 117…
“Dreams of a Life” Review
Dreams of a Life (2011) Directed by Carol Morley, Dreams of a Life is a documentary film telling the real case of Joyce Vincent, a 38 year-old woman who died alone at her bedsit flat in London in December 2003, but her body was not discovered until late January 2006. When the body of Joyce…
“Hacksaw Ridge” Review
Hacksaw Ridge [2016] – ★★★★1/2 An inspiring story about an unconventional hero? A graphic tale of the brutality of a war? A touching and believable love story? Mel Gibson can do it all, and brilliantly. His latest film Hacksaw Ridge tells the true story of Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), a kind, deeply-religious young man who…
Spotlight on Film 