FILM / Critical round-up

SHADOWS AND FOG

'Woody Allen's deliciously strange Shadows and Fog is about the Known and the Unknowable. Part tragedy, part comedy; part human puppet show, part charabanc tour through the dark night of the soul; it is a fantasy prelude in film noir tones to Husbands and Wives.' Nigel Andrews, FT.

'This is Allen's star-studded and rather studied tribute to Expressionism, and cinematographer Carlo di Palma makes quite sure we get the point . . . ' Derek Malcolm, Guardian.

OLIVIER, OLIVIER

'Its great strengths are the controlled intensity of the acting and the sinister contrasts between sunlit landscape and the darker labyrinths of human feeling and desire.' Hugo Davenport, Telegraph.

'What could have been a deeply mysterious tale becomes modestly intriguing, almost prosaic.' Geoff Brown, Times.

THE LIVING END

'Reality? Fantasy? Comedy? Horror? Who knows. Who, alas, cares. Mark this down as the first, worst film of a director who may improve when he empties his system of gay special pleading and camp melodramatics.' Nigel Andrews, FT.

'It makes us almost as uncomfortable as its two lonesome cowboys, and that's why it is at least a minor triumph, superior to both Swoon and Poison as an emotionally truthful product of a sad time.' Derek Malcom, Guardian.