Film Reviews


	Delicacy by M. Faust
	I regret having used the word “piffle” last week to describe (in a nice way) Madonna’s W.E., not because it was inappropriate but because I wish I’d saved it for this week. It’s not a word to be overused, and it is absolutely le mot juste for Delicacy, a French romance starring Audrey Tatou.
	The Raid: Redemption by M. Faust
	People who hate subtitled movies are the perfect audience for The Raid, an Indonesian action spectacular with subtitles. It is to the aesthetic credit of distributor Sony Classics, an outfit that usually specializes in arthouse fare, that they chose to release this in the US in its original language rather than redubbing it into English: As any fan of martial arts movies knows, it’s is pretty much impossible to dub an Asian film well enough not to be a distraction.
	The Kid With a Bike by M. Faust
	Belgium’s Dardenne brothers, Jean-Pierre and Luc, have staked out a niche for themselves over the past few decades as the international cinema’s pre-eminent naturalists, winners of festival awards (including two Palmes d’Or) and regular audiences if not enormous with their stories of everyday people in their home city of Liège. To learn the title of their new film is to assume that they have chosen to remake or at least tribute the neo-realist classic Bicycle Thieves (or, in the incorrectly titled version that most Americans first saw, The Bicycle Thief).

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