Tag: World Cinema review
Minamata | Review
Man with a Movie Camera: Levitas Aims for Noble Rendering of Horrific Toxic Waste Contamination
You’ve heard it before---corporate greed and government corruption colluding to...
Playground | Review
Suffer the Children: Wandel Explores Bullying Through a Child’s Perspective in Superb Debut
If everything one needs to know is learned in kindergarten, part of...
Ballad of a White Cow | Review
Kismet Kisses: Moghaddam & Sanaeeha Mine Intimate Vengeance in Rich Melodrama
The opening moments of Ballad of a White Cow evokes a quote from Al-Baqarah...
Fabian – Going to the Dogs | Review
The Dog Days Aren’t Over: Graf Puts a New Coat of Paint on the Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic, aka the German Republic, which lasted...
Air Doll | Review
There is No Substitute: Kore-eda Digs into Our Rubber Soul with Fantasy Flick
Reinterpreting the notion of what it is to truly be living and...breathing,...
The Last Ride of the Wolves | 2022 Intl. Film Festival Rotterdam Review
Fasten your Seatbelt: De Michele Embarks on a Bumpy First Ride
A thematic continuation of Alberto de Micheleʼs last short film, The Wolves (2011), for...
The Worst Person In The World | Review
Sometimes She Loved Them Too: Trier Formulates Winning Composite of Love and Self Discovery
For his fifth film, The Worst Person in the World, Norway’s...
Sundown | Review
Slaughter House Rules: Franco Continues with Cinema of Distress
The English playwright Robert Bolt wrote “Death comes for us all. Even for kings he comes.”...
Rifkin’s Festival | Review
Spain & Glory: Allen Apes His Darlings in Familiar Comedy of Marital Discord
The first entry of Woody Allen’s European banishment in the twilight years...
The Pink Cloud | Review
Endemic Pandemic: Gerbase Unveils Prophetic Debut of Life During Lockdown
The uncanny prescience of Iuli Gerbase’s directorial debut The Pink Cloud is as stunning as...
What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? | Review
Eye See You: Koberidze Spins a Modern Fairy Tale of Distracted Perceptions
Georgian director Alexandre Koberidze ascends to a sublime arthouse stature with his curious...
Parallel Mothers (Madres paralelas) | Review
The Lives of Mothers: Almodovar’s Melodrama Mines the Personal and Political
Coincidences abound in Parallel Mothers, the latest soap dish from Spain’s perennial auteur, Pedro...
France | Review
France de France: Dumont Soars with Offbeat Melodrama on Media & Misogyny
Few and far between are odd cinematic delights so deliberately off-center and...
Wolf [Video Review]
Oddly aggressive therapy tactics are the antagonist forces in a coming-of-ager drama that looks at a particular mental health disorder that is steeped in...
Red Rocket | Review
Nude Illusion: Baker Returns to Sex Work in Bristling Character Study
You can’t go home again, especially when no one missed you in the first...
Benedetta | Review
Blaspheme, Queen: Verhoeven Turns to Nunsploitation in Erotic Melodrama
Occupying a dazzling intersection of exploitation and queer historical recuperation is the long-awaited Benedetta from Dutch...
The Hand Of God | Review
Idle Hands: Sorrentino’s Sprawling Saga a Wayward Bildungsroman
There’s almost as much to admire as there is to dismiss in The Hand of God, Paolo...
Drive My Car | Review
Lamprey Love: The Play’s the Thing in Hamaguchi’s Brooding Saga of Regrets
“When one has no real life, one lives on illusions,” is one of...
Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn | Review
Stand & Deliver: Jude Doubles Up on the Viral in Kangaroo Court
Leave it to Radu Jude to take a sad song and make it...
Spencer | Review
In the Name of the Rose: Larrain Crafts Empathetic Portrait of an Icon in Anguish
The eternal impact of Diana, Princess of Wales, whose...
Sisters | Review
O Brother, Where Art Thou?: Benguigui Explores Fractured Cultural Identities in Meta Drama
It’s been two decades since French-Algerian filmmaker Yamina Benguigui released her exceptional...
Last Night in Soho | Review
Profondo Glosso: Wright Falters with Glossy, Pseudo-Feminist Ghost Story
Opening upon joyful musical reverie and descending into vibrant color palettes, Edgar Wright’s attempt at...
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain | Review
Wain’s World: Sharpe Presents Loving Portrait of an Artist
It’s odd to reflect upon a time when felines weren’t regarded as a stereotypical domesticated fur...
The French Dispatch | Review
Repetition Commission: Anderson Flatlines with Twee Aesthetic
Since cinema requires a semblance of participation by the audience, a passive relationship of sorts, the latest curio...
Anatomia | 2021 Warsaw International Film Festival Review
Anatomy of a Memory: Jankowska Dissects the Poetics of Belonging Nowhere
Part of the what could be coined as a niche genre of ‘melancholic European...
Meeting Point | 2021 Warsaw International Film Festival Review
Nighttime is the Right Time: two unlikely companions navigate a liminal Istanbul in Evirgen’s one-night odyssey
Sometime in the early naughts, a certain type of...
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy | Review
Flesh+Fantasy: Hamaguchi Harvests Regrets in Eloquent Triptych
One of Japan’s most compelling and profound contemporary auteurs is Ryusuke Hamaguchi, a purveyor of the barely contained...
I Am Fine, Thanks | 2021 Warsaw International Film Festival Review
Love, Deliver Us From Evil: Jankauskas Undercooks His Fiery Dive into Destructive Perfectionism
A flock of particularly belligerent rubber ducks floats toward Maria (Gabija Siurbytė),...
Fever Dream | Review
Threadlock: Llosa Drifts into Elegant Nightmare with Faithful Adaptation
For her fourth feature, Peruvian director Claudia Llosa adapts Samanta Shweblin’s enigmatic novel Fever Dream, a...
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...
