Daniel Roher

Navalny

by
Alexei Navalny being interviewed

Daniel Roher’s documentary Navalny starts with a bit of a joke. Roher, interviewing the Russian politician, would-be president, survivor of a gruesome poisoning, and (as I write) prisoner in a Russian jail, asks him how he’d like to be remembered by the Russian people if he is assassinated. Navalny laughs in an affable “guys, do me a favour” kind of way while pointing out to Roher that this film he’s in the process of making can go one of two ways. It can either be a thriller (he survives) or a “boring memoir” (he is killed). Roher then cuts to a very 007-style shot, of a wintry mountain, from high over the trees, … Read more

Mr & Mrs Smith

by
Mr Smith has Mrs Smith in a headlock

Here’s a strange thing – a screwball comedy by master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock. Mr and Mrs Smith is the only one he made and, sad to report, it’s not very good. A “comedy of remarriage”, its plot isn’t a thousand miles away from the one that floated The Philadelphia Story to glory, about a husband and wife discovering that a legal technicality means their three-year marriage is void. If they want to be husband and wife for real, they’ll have to “remarry”. But, now that they have the chance to reconsider, will they (re)take the plunge? As a bit of a preamble to all this, some vital character furniture is put in place … Read more