Tag: Foreign Film Review
Athena | Review
The World is (Not) Yours: Gavras Clumsily Tackles Civil Unrest, Police Brutality
Recalling elements of his father Costa-Gavras’ most iconic film, Z (1969), Romain Gavras...
Charcoal | 2022 Toronto Intl. Film Festival Review
Business (Wo)Man: Rural Brazil Opt to Pray & Prey in Markowicz’s Debut
If God isn’t listening, maybe the devil is. It’s a compelling idea, and...
The Silent Twins | Review
Sistas With(out) Voices: Smoczynska Revisits Case Study of Antisocial Twins
Poland’s Agnieszka Smoczynska makes her English language debut with third feature The Silent Twins, based...
La Gravité | 2022 Toronto Intl. Film Festival Review
Planet Alignment: Ito Brings Sci-fi to banlieue Drama
A standard issue banlieue crime pic is mashed up with thinly developed sci-fi elements in The Gravity...
Thunder (Foudre) | 2022 Toronto Intl. Film Festival Review
Jaquier’s Exploration of Spiritual and Sexual Awakening is a Divine Debut
Work, marriage, death. These pastoral images of peasant women by long forgotten Swiss painters...
Chiara | 2022 Venice Film Festival Review
Sister and Her Sisters: Nicchiarelli Salutes a Saint in Solemn, Dull Period Reenactment
The friendship between Saint Francis of Assisi and his obscured female counterpart...
Our Ties (Les Miens) | 2022 Venice Film Festival Review
Fit to Be Tied: Zem Scuffles with Family Matters in Slight Drama
For his sixth film as director, celebrated actor Roschdy Zem assembles a notable...
The Damned Don’t Cry | 2022 Venice Film Festival Review
A Boy’s Best Friend is His Mother: Boulifa Explores Complex Symbiosis in Mother-Son Drama
Although it’s cribbing the title of a 1950 Joan Crawford starrer,...
Beyond the Wall | 2022 Venice Film Festival Review
Blind Man’s Bluff: Jalilvand Plays Cheap Tricks with Overwrought Melodrama
To crib from (of all people) Margaret Thatcher, no one would remember the Good...
Lord of the Ants (Il signore delle formiche) | 2022 Venice Film Festival Review
Triumph of the (Court's) Will: Amelio Delves into Infamously Homophobic Italian Court Case
Perennial Italian auteur Gianni Amelio goes back to the contentious political climate...
Speak No Evil | Review
Dial M for Manners: Tafdrup Uses Cruel Intentions to Play Funny Games
Oftentimes the simplest, most realistic scenarios breaking through the veneer of contentment and...
When the Waves Are Gone | 2022 Venice Film Festival Review
When Fair is Foul: Diaz Attempts Neo-Noir in Interminable Derivatives
In the twenty plus features Filipino auteur Lav Diaz has premiered over the past two...
Wolf and Dog (Lobo e Cão) | 2022 Venice Film Festival Review
Dog Gone: Varejão Explores the Stifling Conditions of Traditions in the Portugal Archipelago
Portuguese documentary filmmaker Cláudia Varejão crosses completely into narrative territory with her...
Ordinary Failures | 2022 Venice Film Festival Review
It’s Only the End of the World: Groșan Navigates a Triptych of Displaced Women in Pre-Apocalyptic Intersection
What’s perhaps most fitting about the commonalities between...
L’immensità | 2022 Venice Film Festival Review
This Boy’s Life: Crialese Cuts Corners in Well-Meant Trans Coming-of-Age Drama
Director Emanuele Crialese explores the slow disintegration of a dysfunctional family in 1970s Rome...
Blue Jean | 2022 Venice Film Festival Review
Personal Best: Oakley Exhumes the Terror and Trauma of Life in the Shadow of the Iron Lady
For her directorial debut, Blue Jean, Georgia Oakley...
A Man (Aru Otoko) | 2022 Venice Film Festival Review
The Good Thief: Ishikawa Explores the Tenuous Reality of Identity
As its elemental title suggests, Kei Ishikawa’s fourth film, A Man, asserts we can only...
Dirty Difficult Dangerous | 2022 Venice Film Festival Review
Done Dirt Cheap: Charaf Chafes at Exploited Migrants in Scanty Drama
For his sophomore film, Dirty Difficult Dangerous, Lebanese/French director Wissam Charaf presents an indictment...
Princess | 2022 Venice Film Festival Review
Grimm Fairy Tale: De Paolis’ Neo-Realist Exploration of Migrant Sex Work Brazen, Bewildering
Life’s anything but a fairy tale for the titular character at the...
Peter von Kant | Review
Save Your Tears for Another Day: Ozon Revels in the Camp Mystique of R.W. Fassbinder
It’s clear François Ozon has long been obsessed with the...
Regra 34 (Rule 34) | 2022 Locarno Intl. Film Festival Review
Cam and See: Murat Explores Pleasure Principles in Provocative Portrait
“She does it for the thrill, even if it kills,” might be a good tagline...
Rogue Agent | Review
The Spy Who Loved My Money: Patterson & Lawn Get the Grifter in Seductive Drama
Scribes Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson present a smoothly administered...
Fairytale | 2022 Locarno Intl. Film Festival Review
Planet Terror: Sokurov Gets Purgatorial in Nightmare on 20th Century Tyrants
“Death is the solution to all problems,” said Joseph Stalin. It turns out this...
The Sea Ahead | Review
The Princess of Tides: Dagher Can’t Go Home Again in Broody Beirut
For his directorial debut, The Sea Ahead, Ely Dagher expands on the themes...
Earwig | Review
Earsatz: Hadzihalilovic Sinks Her Teeth In Ambiguous Menace
For her highly anticipated third feature, France’s Lucile Hadzihalilovic resorts to adaptation with the enigmatic Earwig, based...
Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris | Review
Dior on the Floor: Fabian Spins Sweetness into Schmaltz with Anglophile Fairy Tale
It’s never too late to follow one’s dreams, as the truncated tagline...
Both Sides of the Blade | Review
Lover Come Back: Denis Lets the Dark Side in Relationship Melodrama
Three’s definitely a crowd in Both Sides of the Blade (Avec amour et acharnement),...
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande | Review
The Roman Spring of Emma Thompson: Hyde Demands Over Time in Sex Work Dramedy
One wonders what Camille Paglia might have to say about Good...
Lost Illusions | Review
F is for Fake: Giannoli Highlights Prescience in Adaptation of Balzac Classic
The erosion of romanticism and idealism is at the core of Honore de...
Benediction | Review
Words of War: Davies Recuperates Another Poet in Impressionistic Biopic
Following the critical success of his masterful portrait of Emily Dickinson in A Quiet Passion...
Dashcam | Review
Arrhythmia of the Night: Savage Triumphs with Delightfully Bizarre Socio-Horror
There’s an art to successful presentations of unlikeable characters, further complicated when a protagonist is...
After Blue (Dirty Paradise) | Review
Taste of a Toxic Paradise: Mandico Casts a Dark Spell with Broody Sci-Fi
Through a variety of short films, music videos (including several for M83),...
Masquerade | 2022 Cannes Film Festival Review
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels: Bedos Takes the Grift Shift in French Riviera Crime Caper
For a film opening with W. Somerset Maugham’s line, “The French Riviera...
Leila’s Brothers | 2022 Cannes Film Festival Review
How to Beat the High Cost of Living: Roustayi Ponders Poverty in Familial Melodrama
“Anyone who has struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it...
La Jauría | 2022 Cannes Film Festival Review
Beasts in the Jungle: Pulido Suffers the Children in Sinister Debut
At the bizarre intersection of a walkabout and a penal colony is La Jauría...
Les Amandiers (Forever Young) | 2022 Cannes Film Festival Review
Mixed Nuts: Tedeschi Returns to Acting School in Charming, Vigorous Homage
For her fifth narrative feature, the indefatigable Valeria Bruni Tedeschi conjures a nostalgic reunion...
Don Juan | 2022 Cannes Film Festival Review
A Woman is a Woman: Bozon Invokes the Eternal Seducer in Eccentric Musical
Much like Casanova, the name Don Juan has become a euphemism for...
Nos Cérémonies (Summer Scars) | 2022 Cannes Film Festival Review
Summertime Sadness: Reith Explores Brotherly Love with Ominous Magical Realism
It’s a formulation as old as storytelling, two men whose love for one another is...
Continental Drift (South) | 2022 Cannes Film Festival Review
Conventional Liaisons: Baier Leans into the Comedy of Crisis Through Familial Rift
Swiss director Lionel Baier completes the third section of an intended four part...
Men | Review
Take Back the Fright: Garland Returns with Cryptic Fable on Trenchant Misogyny
The tagline for George Cukor’s 1939 classic The Women, which notably featured...
Marcel! | 2022 Cannes Film Festival Review
Dog Gone: Trinca Debuts Pleasant Semi-autobiographical Dramedy
“I’m devoted to divination,” sniffs a haughty Alba Rohrwacher as a self-centered mother in Jasmine Trinca’s directorial debut,...
Frère et soeur (Brother and Sister) | 2022 Cannes Film Festival Review
I’m Not One of Your Fans: Desplechin Delivers Camp Classic with Failed Melodrama
No one depicted in Frère et soeur (Brother and Sister), the latest...
Goutte d’Or (Son of Ramses) | 2022 Cannes Film Festival Review
Sun of a Gun: Cogitore Returns with Cryptic Drama on Violence, Exploitation
France’s Clément Cogitore is clearly a fan of the mysterious and inexplicable sinews...
The Woodcutter Story | 2022 Cannes Film Festival Review
One Flew Over the Cuckold’s Nest: Myllylahti Contends Hope Floats in Black Comedy
By their nature, fables provide fanciful cinematic avenues of metaphorical expression as...
Tchaikovsky’s Wife | 2022 Cannes Film Festival Review
Lady Beard: Serebrennikov Delivers Extravagant Recuperation of a Woman Undone
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, one of the 19th century’s most prolific composers, whose music remains an...
Esterno notte (Exterior Night) | 2022 Cannes Film Festival Review
Dead in Red: Bellocchio Returns to Infamous Kidnapping for Television Debut
In his continuation in recuperating fantastical elements of Italian political and criminal history, Marco...
Operation Mincemeat | Review
Get Them to the Greek: Madden Traipses Lightly Through Factual WWII Espionage
Despite it’s presentation as a frothy pseudo-comedy, the events transpiring in John...
Il Buco | Review
Frammartino Digs Deep, But Barely Scratches the Surface
Michelangelo Frammartino’s Il Buco (“The Hole”) is a meditative journey into the center of the earth,...
Reflection | Review
In the Fog Mirror: Vasyanovych Punishes with Numbing Exercise on War & Trauma
Following up on his international breakout, Atlantis (2019), Ukrainian director Valentyn Vasyanovych...
Human Factors | Review
The Discomfort of Strangers: Trocker Collapses Paranoia and Perspectives in Brooding Familial Drama
Communication, when you really think about it, is all but impossible. Words...
