Recent reviews

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  Empire of the Sun 1987

  ★★★★ Watched 15 Aug 2018

  In Empire Spielberg translates the childhood story of the sci-fi writer JG Ballard, played here by a young Christian Bale. Caught up in WW2 he’s thrown from the privilege of a British ex-pat community in Shanghai into a near feral existence in a Japanese prison camp. Broken families and themes of exodus - common topics for Spielberg - are present and serve the drama well, but too often the soundtrack is overbearing and heavy handed. Most striking for me were the dislocations: the familiar landscapes quickly becoming deserted and disorientating amid a struggle for survival. Intriguing moments from Ballard’s formative years that shaped his later work.

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