MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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Film round-up
Reviews of Young Ahmed, An American Pickle, Perfect, The Snow Queen: Mirrorlands and Flash Gordon
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
Young Ahmed (NR)
Directed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
★★★
HOW does a studious, video game-loving Belgian teenage boy turn into a radicalised Muslim, hell-bent on killing his teacher? Can a blossoming friendship with a girl his own age who challenges his fanatical beliefs be enough to bring him around?
Those are the questions posed by this very powerful and slow-burning drama from writer-directors the Dardenne brothers.
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