Tag: Foreign Film Review
DAU | 2026 Venice Film Festival Review
Darkness Visible: Khrzhanovsky Reformulates Saga of Shattered Scientists
If ex-Attorney General and fascist sentinel Pam Bondi was ever credited as uttering anything worth repeating, it...
Bunker | 2026 Venice Film Festival Review
Atlas Dug: Zeller Teases the Comedy of Obligation
It’s become increasingly clear celebrated writer Florian Zeller has a difficult time killing his darlings when it...
The Spiral (L’Estranea) | 2026 Venice Film Festival Review
The Devil is a Woman: Strippoli Concocts an Elegant Parent Trap
As far as horrific moral fables about Catholic guilt and resisting temptation go, director...
Look Back | 2026 Venice Film Festival Review
Broken Heart Art: Kore-eda Builds Bittersweet Elegy to Friendship
Art is both the impetus for destruction and creation in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest, Look Back, a...
London | 2026 Venice Film Festival Review
Magnificent Obsession: Di Marco & Picoli Patrol the Poison of Perfection
Our conditioned notions regarding beauty standards maintains our insidious and unhealthy fixation with obtaining...
Agata the Writer | 2026 Venice Film Festival Review
The Blindness of Strangers: Dorabialski Stings the Storyteller
“In the end, we’ll all become stories,” per Margaret Atwood, a sentiment which is ultimately at the...
Woman Unknown | 2026 Venice Film Festival Review
The Penile Code: el-Toukhy Explores the Gendered Paradox of Liberation
Something is certainly rotten in the state of Denmark following the country’s liberation from Nazi...
The Echo Chamber | 2026 Venice Film Festival Review
An Affair to Disremember: Pallaoro Explores the Unbearable Bleakness of Being
Love is hardly a many-splendored thing in The Echo Chamber, the fourth feature directed...
Oase (Oasis) | 2026 Venice Film Festival Review
The Child Inside: Lenz Explores the Virtues of Violence
For his narrative feature debut Oasis, Jannis Lenz channels contemporary intergenerational neglect and the inherent apathy...
Possible Love | 2026 Venice Film Festival Review
Blue is the Warmest Collar: Chang-dong Prepares a Touch of Class
Boiled down to its core essence, Possible Love, the first feature from South Korean...
It Will Happen Tonight (Succederà questa notte) | 2026 Venice Film Festival Review
The Birds, the Bees and the (Displaced) Italians: Moretti Tries Amour For
In the latter half of his career, revered Italian director Nanni Moretti has...
Un détour par Diane | 2026 Venice Film Festival Review
Even Cowgirls Gets the Clues: Sirot/Balboni Rewrite the Past...in the Future
Belgium tandem Ann Sirot and Raphaël Balboni take the machinery of the western —...
Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People? | 2026 Venice Film Festival Review
How Awful About Allen: Tsukamoto Continues Charting Casualties of War
“Ain’t war hell?,” asks the door gunner to Matthew Modine’s protagonist in Stanley Kubrick’s Full...
The City of the Living | 2026 Venice Film Festival Review
Autopsy Audit: Gabbriellini Examines the Choices Before the Mistakes
Those left behind to pick up the pieces are rarely the center of film dramas —...
A Place To Heal (15/18) | 2026 Venice Film Festival Review
Teenage Wasteland: Kahn Gets Clinical with Familiar Procedural
Picture this: A bustling medical ward in a top performing French facility with specialized treatment protocols where...
House of the Wind (La maison du vent) | 2026 Venice Film Festival Review
If You Build It, They Won't Come: Yanghu Offers Alternate Version to Home Improvement
Working through migration, isolation and the complicated meaning of home, Auguste...
Wild Horse Nine | 2026 Venice Film Festival Review
They Shoot Agents, Don’t They?: McDonagh Morosely Reflects a Pernicious Empire
Americans can’t quite seem to directly engage with their ills of the present by...
Bucking Fastard | 2026 Venice Film Festival Review
Sisters Doing It For Themselves: Herzog Returns with Theater of the Bizarre
Until quite recently, it was a foregone conclusion legendary director Werner Herzog would...
2026 Venice Exclusive: Poster One-Sheet & Clip for Auguste Bernard Kouemo Yanghu’s House of the Wind (La maison du vent)
Working with themes of migration, loneliness, abandonment and the need for connection, among the feature debuts programmed in this year's Orizzonti competition line-up we...
Ink | 2026 Venice Film Festival Review
The Sun Also Rises: Boyle Explores the Origins of Media Sensationalism
If, as Alan Moore posits, “It is the job of the artists to give...
The Girl with the Leica | 2026 Venice Film Festival Review
Coupins D’abord: Marazzi Documents Love in Times of Capa
Dually exploring the construction of an image and of a brand, the story of Gerda Taro...
How to Divorce During the War | Review
Invisible Missiles: Blaževičius Offers Chilly Portrayal of a Couple & Country in Crisis
Given its title, Andrius Blaževičius’ third outing, How to Divorce During the...
Train to Busan | Review
Here Comes the Train Again: Sang-ho’s Live Action Debut Heavy on Tropes
Zombie contagion sweeps over South Korea while a random band of survivors struggle...
Her Private Hell | Review
What Have They Done to Your Daughters?: Refn Returns with Vacuous Vengeance
After disappearing into television for the past decade, Nicolas Winding Refn once again...
Sheep in the Box | Review
I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK: Koreeda Explores Cruise Control with AI
Somehow, despite being set in the ‘not too distant future,’ Hirokzau Kore-eda’s twee...
A Sad and Beautiful World | Review
No Man is an Island: Aris Explores Childhood, Couplehood and Parenthood with Flip Book Speeds
Lebanese filmmaker Cyril Aris utilizes the three distinct yet related...
Rosebush Pruning | Review
The Killing of a Sacred Dogtooth: Ainouz Paints with Contempt
Karim Aïnouz doesn’t so much eat the rich as he does regurgitate them in his...
Black Money for White Nights | 2026 Karlovy Vary Film Festival Review
Steal Big, Steal Little: Grozeva & Valchanov Deliver Just Deserts
It’s difficult not to feel a sense of schadenfreude in following the drastic downfall of...
The Guest | 2026 Karlovy Vary Film Festival Review
You’ll (Dis)Like My Mother: Mengel Mars a Celebration
With his directorial debut The Guest, director Mads Mengel seems to have turned to the manifesto of...
A Happy Family | 2026 Karlovy Vary Film Festival Review
She’s Come Undone: Mack Concocts an Empathetic Chaos
It’s clear from the opening moments of Jan-Eric Mack’s narrative debut A Happy Family the title is...
Chica Checa | 2026 Karlovy Vary Film Festival Review
The Next Best Thing: Holy Hits the Sweet Spot with Tender Drama
There’s a short list of feature length queer films in Czech cinema, and...
Two Prosecutors | Review
Ordeal by Innocence: Loznitsa Mines the Terrors of Naïveté
A good man is hard to find, and if one were to be found, he’s likely...
The Most Precious Of Cargoes | Review
The Zone of Disinterest: Hazanavicius Reanimates the Holocaust in Moral Fable
What’s most interesting about director Michel Hazanavicius are his valiant attempts at dabbling in...
Romería | Review
Blood Relatives: Simon Treads Familiar Water with Continued Autofiction
After winning the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for her 2022 sophomore film Alcarras,...
La petite dernière (The Little Sister) | Review
The Lost Daughter: Herzi Passes Up Potency in Standard Adaptation
“My name is Fatima,” is one of the constant refrains utilized in Fatima Daas’ celebrated...
Renoir | Review
Family of Straw: Hayakawa Paints Busy Coming-of-Age Portrait
Going in the opposite direction of her 2022 debut Plan 75, a sci-fi meditation on Japan’s aging...
The Wizard of the Kremlin | Review
The Russians Are Killing the Russians Are Killing: Assayas Bungles Political Espionage
Of the many significant issues severely hobbling The Wizard of the Kremlin, the...
The Dreamed Adventure | 2026 Cannes Film Festival Review
The Era of Men: Valeska Dredges the Darkness of the Past
There’s an essence of Valeska Grisebach’s cinema which makes one feel as if it’s...
The Birthday Party (Histoires de la nuit) | 2026 Cannes Film Festival Review
Bird on a Wire: The Past Haunts the Present in Mysius’ Thriller
For her third feature film, Histoires de la nuit (aka The Birthday Party),...
Coward | 2026 Cannes Film Festival Review
Bent Knee, Limp Wrist: Dhont Explores Love at the Frontline
“We have so much to say and we shall never say it,” is one of...
The Black Ball (La bola negra) | 2026 Cannes Film Festival Review
The Play’s the Thing: Ambrossi & Calvo Connect the Dots
“Dark love is the love that is never named,” wrote Federico Garcia Lorca in Sonnets...
A Man of His Time (Notre salut) | 2026 Cannes Film Festival Review
Lost Illusions: Marre Administers Plodding Portrait of an Opportunist
“There’s nothing worse than being bored with a boring man,” according to French writer Antoine Laurain....
Titanic Ocean | 2026 Cannes Film Festival Review
Deep Sea, Baby: Kotzamani Goes Down Where It’s Wetter
Greek filmmaker Konstantina Kotzamani heads to Japan for her directorial debut, Titanic Ocean, its fanciful title...
Minotaur | 2026 Cannes Film Festival Review
The Cranes Aren’t Flying: Zvyagintsev Unleashes Primordial Tendencies
“They always end disastrously,” Kate Burton advises Diane Lane of extramarital affairs in Adrian Lyne’s 2002 erotic...
Bitter Christmas (Amarga Navidad) | 2026 Cannes Film Festival Review
Women on the Verge of a Creative Breakdown: Almodovar Explores Anxious Inspirations
“All literature is gossip,” quipped Truman Capote, an iconoclast whose predilection for ‘borrowing’...
Fjord | 2026 Cannes Film Festival Review
Uncanny Valley: Mungiu Explores Liberated Prisons
Totalitarian mentality is driven to logical extremes in Fjord, Romanian auteur Cristian Mungiu’s first foray outside of his native...
Six Months in a Pink and Blue Building | 2026 Cannes Film Festival Review
Years We Fell Apart: Razo Resurrects the Final Throes of Childhood
For his first narrative feature, documentary filmmaker Bruno Santamaría Razo utilizes a docu-hybrid in...
The Unknown (L’Inconnue) | 2026 Cannes Film Festival Review
She Who Is Not: Harari Explores Existential Identity Issues in the Body Swap
“A woman, for me, must remain a woman,” stated Andrey Tarkovsky when...
Hope | 2026 Cannes Film Festival Review
Monster Squad: Hong-jin Goes Full-Blown Extraterrestrial
For his fourth feature, South Korean director Na Hong-jin goes for breakneck, relentless mayhem in the curiously titled Hope....
Strawberries (La más dulce) | 2026 Cannes Film Festival Review
Fruit on the Vine: Marrakchi Harvests Bitter Justice
“We give our bodies. All that for peanuts,” is an anguished remonstrance from the protagonist in Strawberries,...
