Film reviews: Seraphine | Paranormal Activity | Bunny and the Bull | Glorious 39

Published on Friday 20 November 2009 18:05

SÉRAPHINE (PG) * * * *

Yolande Moreau, below, stars as Sraphine Louis, a frowsy, bulky French washerwoman who lives alone in bitter poverty. Her looks and low birth render her almost invisible to the rest of the town but, when work is finished, the 50-year-old climbs a tree, luxuriating in the views.

In 1914, almost by accident, the German art critic and collector Wilhelm Uhde (Ulrich Tukur) sees one of her small artworks, painted with oils Sraphine makes from ingredients such as chicken blood and wax pilfered from church candles. He pays her and tells her she has talent. He promises to return, but war and other preoccupations keep him away. More than a decade on, he is astonished to find her still alive and painting feverishly after his encouragement. Inspired by deep religious beliefs and touched by mental instability, Sraphine's work is vivid, ecstatic and almost hallucinatory.

Intelligent and evocative, this gently paced film tracing her rise and heartbreaking fall is a picture to savour, especially Moreau's subtly possessed performance. Long before Susan Boyle's travails, Sraphine holds a mirror up to the way in which sudden celebrity for an under-equipped artist can have marvellous and sometimes terrible consequences.

Selected release from Friday

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY (15)

* * *

This is 2009's The Blair Witch Project: shot on an $11,000 budget and likely to divide audiences into those who will enjoy its film school ingenuities and those who prefer Saw-type gruesomeness. Lo-fi pictures like this work best on people with overactive imaginations; if that's you, this will scare the pants off you.

A haunted house chiller, it centres on a couple plagued by unexplained incidents and noises at home. Katie (Katie Featherston) suspects a something paranormal, so her annoying boyfriend Micah (Micah Sloat) sets up a video to record while they sleep. At a time when digital techniques can show us almost anything, Paranormal Activity is a reminder that you can generate decent scares from the stuff we can't see.

General release from Wednesday

BUNNY AND THE BULL (15)

* *

Mighty Boosh director Paul King debuts on the big screen with a comedy about an agoraphobic recalling his disastrous road trip across Europe with his friend Bunny. Boosh fans may perk up when Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt make appearances but many of the film's gags are as flat as Holland.

Selected release from Friday

GLORIOUS 39 (12A)

* *

Stephen Poliakoff's pre-Second World War thriller stars Romola Garai, left, who discovers skeletons in the family closet. Bill Nighy co-stars.

Selected release from Friday

• This article was first published in Scotland on Sunday on 22 November 2009.