‘Empire Of Light’ Telluride Review: Olivia Colman Is Incandescent In Sam Mendes’ Touching Ode To Movie Theatres
Like other filmmakers of recent years such as Alfonso Cuaron with Roma, Paulo Sorrentino with The Hand Of God, and Kenneth Branagh with Belfast, Sam Mendes is in a mood to explore his own memories of his formative years, but unlike those films, he doesn’t put his younger self at the center of the story, but he does put his own experience of seeing movies in theatres right up front. But make no mistake, this is decidedly not the lovingly sentimental Cinema Paradiso, but rather a film that is, at least in part, a valentine to moviegoing in a world of increasing tension and racial strife, a place to get away from the sad realities of life, if only for a couple of hours.