Winterbottom's The Shock Doctrine: Slashing Through Cut Throat Capitalism

More from Borderlines Director, David Gillam, at the San Sebastian Film Festival:

Michael Winterbottom's new documentary The Shock Doctrine does exactly what it says on the tin - galloping through Naomi Klein's influential book in 75 minutes is quite a feat.

Klein's basic idea that crises provide the opportunity to introduce economic policies that would otherwise be unpopular is well documented through the usual suspects: Milton Friedman, Pinochet's Chile, Thatcher, Reagan, Yeltsin's Russia through to cut throat capitalism's current crisis.

An important film if you want to know why the world is in such a mess...

Enigmatic new Jarmusch film - Spanish road movie or mind trip?

Fresh bulletin from David Gillam in San Sebastian:

Jim Jarmusch's The Limits of Control provided a note of entertainment to a diet of murder and madness. A black samurai crosses Spain meeting a stellar cast of mysterious strangers for bizarre, cryptic conversations about cinema, art, perception. John Hurt, Tilda Swinton in a ridiculous white wig, Gael García Bernal parade by till a final showdown with Bill Murray, one of the men in black running a secret prison in Spain.

Playful, funny, certainly the most acute, cinematic reponse to the state of the world.

Post-haste from San Sebastian

Borderlines director David Gillam has sent news (via multiple texts) about what he's been viewing during the opening weekend of the 57th San Sebastian International Film Festival, the largest of its kind in Spain and one of the major European film festivals. Look out for his recommendations below. Who knows, some of them might be screening at Borderlines 2010...

The first day at San Sebastian Film Festival was a bit of a damp squib. I didn't get to meet Quentin Tarantino or Brad Pitt who were in town for the Inglourious Basterds premiere. Worse still, Atom Egoyan's opener Chloe was really dire, unbelievable with a terrible pat ending. Fernando Trueba's The Dancer and the Thief was even worse, a real mess despite the best efforts of the wonderful Ricardo Darín.

Best of the day was definitely Whatever Works, Woody Allen's latest. In many ways a comic panto with stock characters, nevertheless it works, funny throughout with great one-liners, s'amuse bien.




Day 2: Just occasionally I see a film that reaffirms my belief in the ability of the cinema to create such empathy for a character that it changes the way we see the world. Precious is such a film. Precious is a 200lb, illiterate 16 year old , pregnant for the second time by her father. From such an unrelentingly grim start comes a wonderfully positive film, full of life and imagination.

N.B. Precious has just won the audience award at the Toronto International Film Festival, often a good indicator of future Oscar success.

Day 3: Ozon's latest The Refuge is very fine, beautifully shot. Every scene leads subtly to a 'surprise' ending that for once is credible and thought-provoking. The Refuge is the story of Maggie who survives when her boyfriend o-d's. Pregnant, she learns to be 'alone' through her relationship with her boyfriend's gay brother.