Tag: World Cinema review
Bergman Island | Review
The Passion of Mia: Hansen-Love Makes Her Own Place at the Table
For her complex and absorbing seventh feature, Bergman Island, Mia Hansen-Løve returns to...
The Hill Where Lionesses Roar | 2021 Warsaw International Film Festival Review
Roar of a Generation: Bajrami Looks Beyond the Hills of Kosovo
It’s 2021 in a small town situated somewhere in Kosovo and yet everything feels...
Hit the Road | 2021 New York Film Festival Review
Take the Wheel, My Son: Panahi’s Character-Driven Exodus
Hit the Road is equal parts hilarious and devastating. Tracking an Iranian family while they try to...
Titane | Review
Car Crash Set: Ducournau Crafts a Cult Classic with Grotesque Odyssey of Dysfunction
In J.G. Ballard’s seminal 1973 cult novel Crash, infamously adapted in 1996...
Inexorable | 2021 Toronto Intl. Film Festival Review
The Hand that Mocks the Cradle: Du Welz Finds an Interloper in Vintage Throwback
Long before a lithesome ingenue shows up to ruin a wealthy...
Captain Volkonogov Escaped | 2021 Venice Film Festival Review
Can You Ever Forgive Me?: Chupov & Merkulova Explore Redemption in Scathing, Dramatic Thriller
For their third feature, Captain Volkonogov Escaped, directors Aleksey Chupov...
Ariaferma (The Inner Cage) | 2021 Venice Film Festival Review
Guards and Monsters: Costanzo Finds Humanity in Balanced Ratios
Utilizing the novel opportunity of how power wanes in the crumbling of an institution’s viability, Italian...
Promises | 2021 Venice Film Festival Review
Broken is the Golden Bowl: Kruithof Rips at the Red Tape in Character Driven Political Drama
It’s not so much politics as usual in Les...
Wife of a Spy | Review
Spy Game: Kurosawa Finds Passion & Terror in History’s Gloom
One doesn’t tend to associate period melodrama or espionage with Kiyoshi Kurosawa, a perennial genre...
The Unknown Man of Shandigor (1967) | 2021 Fantasia Film Festival Review
Cold Cuts: Roy’s Nuclear Spy Thriller Renews Its Half-Life
In The Unknown Man of Shandigor, one can experience a cinematic time capsule of corresponding themes...
Medea | 2021 Locarno Film Festival Review
Who Could Kill a Child?: Zeldovich Explores a Fearful Symmetry in Modernized Tragedy
Russian director Alexander Zeldovich’s filmography is something of a curiosity unto itself,...
She Will | 2021 Locarno Film Festival Review
She Wants Revenge: Colbert Commingles Traumas for a Witchy Saga
Director Charlotte Colbert delivers a moody character portrait mired in the mysteriousness of folk horror...
The Macaluso Sisters | Review
Sister Acts: Dante Wallows in Tragedy Defined Sisterhood
Director Emma Dante spins a melancholic web of familial woe following five women defined by tragic circumstances...
Never Gonna Snow Again | Review
Intimate Strangers: Szumowska & Englert Explore Despondency & Isolation
Our innate capacity for constructing the vehicles of our own alienation and ennui inform the backdrop...
Mama Weed | Review
Selective Affinities: High-Fives for Huppert & Hannelore Cayre in Vivacious French Neo-noir
Often described as cold, icy, impassive, and inscrutable, the performances of Isabelle Huppert,...
Annette | Review
Henry Fool: Music & Misogyny Explored in Glossy Return of Carax
Like nearly all of Leos Carax’s films over the past thirty years (of which...
A Hero | 2021 Cannes Film Festival Review
Purse First: Farhadi Brings Agony and Ecstasy in Latest Social Drama
Robert Burns’ eternal passage, cribbed by Steinbeck, “the best laid schemes o’ mice and...
Medusa | 2021 Cannes Film Festival Review
O Kill, All Ye Faithful: Da Silveira Kills the Teen Dream in Capricious Sophomore Film
If there’s anything for certain in approaching Medusa, the extravagantly...
Bruno Reidal, Confession of a Murderer | 2021 Cannes Film Festival Review
The Killer Inside Me: Le Port Mines the Makings of a Murderer in Detached True Crime Sketch
Director Vincent Le Port revisits a chilling murder...
La Fracture | 2021 Cannes Film Festival Review
Conqueror Worms: Corsini Juggles Metaphors in Strangely Asymmetrical Social Issue Film
Director Catherine Corsini metastasizes an ensemble exercise for her eleventh feature, La Fracture, a...
The Employer and the Employee | 2021 Cannes Film Festival Review
Bargaining Basement: Zas Presents a Touch of Caste in Free Market Melodrama
The working class do not go to heaven in Manuel Nieto Zas’ third...
Softie (Petite nature) | 2021 Cannes Film Festival Review
Sharp Shock to Your Soft Side: Theis Mines the Uncomfortable Realities of Sexuality
In the one-hundred-and-twenty-five years since the detrimental trials of Oscar Wilde and...
Tom Medina | 2021 Cannes Film Festival Review
The Man Without a Country: Gatlif Explores the Tribulations of Redemption in Oblique Character Study
French-Algerian director Tony Gatlif remains something of a European anomaly...
The Hill Where the Lionesses Roar | 2021 Cannes Film Festival Review
Hear Them Roar: Bajrami Shouts an Outcry on Female Subjugation
Luàna Bajrami, who appeared as the maid in Celina Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on...
Genus, Pan | Review
Three Amigos: Diaz Explores Featherless Bipeds in Latest Leisurely Expose on Baseness
Running time is always a point of contention when it comes the cinema...
Gaia [Video Review]
Fungus Among Us: Bouwer Delivers Eco-Horror Slow Burn
Ecological horror films have taken on a somewhat lusty, unprecedented gravity in the wake of the COVID-19...
Sweat | Review
Fitness for the Prosecution: Von Horn Sings Song for the Lonely in the Digital Age
In the digital age, perhaps now more than ever, love...
Summer of 85 (Été 85) | Review
Summertime Sadness: Ozon Casts Yonder Glance at the Boys of Summer
Rare is the year without a fresh offering from perennial French favorite François Ozon,...
Roaring 20’s | 2021 Tribeca Film Festival Review
Walking & Talking: Vogler Captures the Bustling & Bebopping of Distinctive Parisian Summer
Decades from now, the cinematic impact of projects conceived of and filmed...
Undine | Review
Till Human Voices Wake Us: Petzold Gets Mythologically Romantic
A classical figure of mythology and beyond, the Undine (or Siren), a water nymph creature who’s...
My Tender Matador | Review
Pray Away the Pinochet: Sepulveda Cruises Castro with Striking Adaptation
While there’s a bounty of burgeoning directors who have grown out of the New Chilean...
The Retreat [Video Review]
The Hateful Straights: Mills Finds Bigots in the Backwoods in Exploitation Effort
One of the many silver linings of genre filmmaking is the powerful...
Spring Blossom (Seize printemps) | Review
The Flower of Her Secret: Lindon Conquers a Crush in Directorial Debut
Exemplifying the sincere transitional period Britney Spears famously moaned about when she sang...
New Order | Review
How Does It Feel, To Treat Me Like You Do?: Franco Flies Into Traumas of Totalitarianism
It’s a sign of the times, wherein an apocalyptic...
Riders of Justice [Video Review]
Chances Are: Jensen Gets Improbable in Violent Soap Opera
Denmark’s Anders Thomas Jensen brings his offbeat skills at scripted ensembles to his fifth feature as...
About Endlessness [Video Review]
Beauty & Banality: Andersson Ponders the Void in Potential Final Film
There might be no greater spiritual absurdist than Sweden’s premiere arthouse auteur Roy Andersson,...
Cliff Walkers | Review
A Cliff Too Far: Yimou Navigates Tortured Times in Period Espionage Thriller
Arguably the most successful and prolific of the Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers,...
Limbo | Review
Immigrant Song: The Personal is Political in Sharrock’s Quietly Sincere Portrait of Asylum Seeker
The plight of the political asylum seeker is a complex situation...
Hope | Review
M is for Metastasis: Sødahl Returns with Emotional Portrait of Terminal Illness
Portraits of terminal illness have created a cinematic subgenre staple unto itself, and...
Monday [Video Review]
Wish It Were Sunday: Papadimitropoulos Peddles Bad Romance in Ex-Pat Whirligig
Toxic relationships and fair-weather romances are abundantly attenuated in the cinematic realm, the various...
The Banishing | Review
The Vicar Man: Smith Returns to Period with Bustling Slow Burn
If you’re familiar with the filmography of British filmmaker Christopher Smith, you know you’re...
Moffie [Video Review]
Call Me by Your Shame: Hermanus Mines Historical Trauma in Coming-of-Age Drama
It’s difficult to reconcile the messiness of the past with potential issues of...
In the Earth | Review
Middling Earth: Wheatley Explores Favored Motifs in Pensive Pandemic Exercise
If we’ve gleaned anything about circumventing Mother Nature, perhaps those 1970s Chiffon margarine commercials featuring...
The Power | Review
Night Nurse: Faith Finds the Night the Lights Went Out on the Patriarchy in Moody Debt
Director Corinna Faith makes fine use of period and...
The Salt of Tears | Review
Love Means Never Having to Say: Garrel Continues Exploration of Love and Lust
“Love ain’t nothin’ but sex misspelled,” Harlon Ellison astutely wrote, for too...
Violation [Video Review]
Crime & Punishment: Sims-Fewer & Mancinelli Serve a Cold Dish
Neither redemption nor revenge are at the complete behest of the individual, at least not...
Enforcement [Video Review]
Cop(s) Out: Hviid & Olholm Provide Neutral Portrait Prizing Familiar Perspectives
Cinema can certainly successfully exist as both a statement and a sentiment, and...
Slaxx [Video Review]
You Fit Me Better Than My Favorite Sweater: Kephart Gets Hemmed in by Killer Jeans
Who doesn’t like a pair of perfectly fitted blue jeans?...
The Courier [Video Review]
You’ve Got Mail: Cooke Leaves the Cold War on Ice in Sluggish Spy Thriller
Director Dominic Cooke, revered for his stage work before commencing on...
Come True [Video Review]
The Science of Sleep: Burns Roars into Your REM Cycle with Broody Thriller
“To sleep, perchance to scream” might be a takeaway impression from Come...
