Tag: World Cinema review
An Unfinished Film | Review
The Act of Watching: Lou Ye Mixes Picture Lock Dreams & Lock Down Nightmares
Does a film exist if it was never completed? It’s a...
The Empire (L’Empire) | Review
The Satire Strikes Back: Dumont Claims His Own Multi-Verse
It’s sometimes difficult to predict what mode French auteur Bruno Dumont will be choosing for his...
World War III | Review
War & Fleece: Seyyedi’s Swiftly Shifting Satire Explores the Corrupting Nature of Power
In one of the most unromanticized depictions of the filmmaking process, Iranian...
What Does that Nature Say to You | 2025 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
The Parent Trap: Sang-soo Takes Sideways Swipe at Social Etiquette
A constant purveyor of how subtle social cues are obliterated by the lowered inhibitions of...
La cache (The Safe House) | 2025 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
May Days: Baier’s Broad Commentary on a Revolutionary Footnote
“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people,” said Eleanor Roosevelt. Dipping...
Kontinental ’25 | 2025 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Can You Ever Forgive Me?: Jude Skewers the Status Quo
Ownership is an unsaid key word in Kontinental ’25, the latest perambulating spasm from Romanian...
Yunan | 2025 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Nothing is Everything: Eldin’s Continuing Exploration of Existential Crisis
For his sophomore film Yunan, intended as the second chapter in a thematic trilogy following 2021’s...
Mother’s Baby | 2025 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby: Moder Repeats Motherhood Horrors
A palpable, instinctual fascination with the potential horrors of pregnancy are exactly why neonatal dread...
The Message (El mensaje) | 2025 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Gates of Heaven: Fund Explores Creature Comforts from Beyond
“We are not victims of the world we see, we are victims of the way we...
What Marielle Knows | 2025 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
The Best Little Secrets Are Kept: Hambalek’s Absurdly Skewers the Virtues of Honesty
Honesty may indeed be the best policy and maybe the truth might...
On vous croit (We believe you) | 2025 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
High Tension: Deville & Dufeys Suffer the Children in Jittery Debut
Tossing us right into the hellfire of an acutely agonizing situation, Charlotte Deville and...
Girls on Wire | 2025 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Mad Bills to Pay: Qu Stages Miserabilist Soap Opera
If Girls on Wire settles on anything clear to say it’s quite simply that crime doesn’t...
The Blue Trail (O último azul) | 2025 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Crimes of the Future: Mascaro Envisions Trouble Ahead
“Getting old ain’t no place for sissies,” a quote often attributed to Bette Davis (or similar variations...
Dreams | 2025 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Magnificent Obsession: Franco Finds Love is a Hopeless Place
Michel Franco lassos Jessica Chastain into his continued class conflict examinations in Dreams, an intimate portrait...
Hysteria | 2025 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Burn After Filming: Büyükatalay Explores Colliding Perspectives in Nuanced Drama
While it can’t be described as a classic thriller, Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay’s sophomore film Hysteria...
Ari | 2025 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Murmur of the Heart: Serraille Conquers Indifference Through Sincerity
With her third feature, Ari, director Léonor Serraille confirms a clear pattern of interest in exploring...
The Best Mother in the World (A melhor mãe do mundo) | 2025 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Life is Beautiful: Muylaert Takes Aim at Domestic Abuse in Heartfelt Drama
In A melhor mãe do mundo (The Best Mother in the World), the...
Living the Land | 2025 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Land of Steady Habits: Meng Reflects Familial Upheaval in Quiet Saga
“Isn’t it queer: there are only two or three human stories, and they go...
Home Sweet Home | 2025 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Sofie, Homemaker: Petersen Banks on Undervalued Emotional Labor
Danish director Frelle Petersen’s latest title Home Sweet Home (Hjem kaere hjem) aims to showcase the significant...
Parthenope | Review
The Boring & Beautiful: Sorrentino’s Tone Deaf Portrait of a Lady
It’s unfortunate no one’s as likely to be infatuated with the eponymous Parthenope (pronounced...
Bring Them Down | Review
Everybody Hurts: All Pain and No Gain in Christopher Andrews’ Debut Bring Them Down
If misery loves company, then Bring Them Down is a party....
Marcello Mio | Review
In the Name of the Father: Honore Pays Homage via Identity Crisis
“I only exist when I am working on a film,” Marcello Mastroianni...
DJ Ahmet | 2025 Sundance Film Festival Review
All DJs, Great and Small: Unkovski’s Debut Can’t Stop the Music
While its location might feel inherently unique, the happenings in Georgi M. Unkovski’s narrative...
I’m Still Here (Ainda Estou Aqui) | Review
Still Missing: Salles Returns with Survivors of the Dictatorship
“The dictatorship’s mistakes was to torture but not kill,” former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro proudly claimed...
Sisterhood (HLM Pussy) | Review
Nora El Hourch’s Fiery Sisterhood is La Haine for the #MeToo Generation
Arriving like a molotov cocktail thrown through a plate glass window — or...
Eat the Night | Review
The Sway of the Sword: Reality Bytes in Poggi/Vinel's Bleak Online/Offline Portrait
Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel's sophomore feature outing pulses with the heartbeat of...
Pepe | Review
Cocaine Hippo: de Los Santos Arias Explores an Assassination
To say Pepe, the second narrative feature from Dominican director Nelson Carlos de Los Santos Arias,...
Vermiglio | Review
Baby Machines: Delpero Designs Tapestry of Women’s Miseries During WWII Italy
Despite the associations suggested by its title, Maura Delpero’s sophomore film Vermiglio is a...
The Brutalist | Review
The Safety of Objectivism: Corbet Unleashes the Survival Instinct of Rational Egoism
“The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody has decided...
The Room Next Door | Review
Triumph of the Will: Almodovar’s Muy Excelente English Debut
“Women and fiction remain, so far as I am concerned, unsolved problems,” wrote Virginia Woolf in...
Seeking Haven For Mr. Rambo | 2024 Red Sea Intl. Film Festival Review
First Blood: Khaled Mansour’s Debut Follows A Man Ready To Fight For The Fate Of His Dog
In First Blood, John Rambo is a quiet...
The Order | Review
The True Story of a Racist Gang: Kurzel Explores Formative Chapter of American Domestic Terrorism
There’s a brooding, sinister quality to Justin Kurzel’s filmmaking, whose...
The Girl with the Needle | Review
Casa de los Babys: von Horn Hits a Bleak Streak
You know you’re in for something dark and dreary when a film opens upon a...
Power Alley (Levante) | Review
That Time of the Month: Halla Offers Ringside Seats to the Courts - Both On and Off
In one’s timeline, it’s the pre-adulthood teenage years...
The Seed of the Sacred Fig | Review
Way of the Gun: Rasoulof’s Bold, Blunt Indictment of Iranian Regime
There’s been little opportunity for artists to clearly or critically speak truth to power...
Queer | Review
(Disem)Body Talk: Guadagnino Pays Homage to the Paradoxical Beat Pariah
If Ayn Rand had dared to write a character who was a genius gay white...
Maria | Review
Songs from the Specious Floor: Larrain Imagines the Last Days of a Diva
A penny for the thoughts of Maria Callas regarding Pablo Larraín’s glossy...
All We Imagine as Light | Review
The Big City: Kapadia Designs Lovely Portrait of Friendship and Free Will
Mumbai is a city of illusions, a character remarks in Payal Kapadia’s debut...
The Devil’s Bath (Des Teufels Bad) | Review
Agnes of God: Franz & Fiala’s Bleak Portrait of Women & Madness
“A Witch is born out of the true hungers of her time,” wrote...
Bird | Review
Dole Days: Arnold Flutters About with Strange Bedfellows
There’s certainly a definable emotional core in Andrea Arnold’s fifth narrative feature, Bird, but the ideas and...
Small Things like These | Review
All the Small Things: Mielants Mines the Evils of Complicity
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do...
Emilia Pérez | Review
Risky Business: Audiard Surprises with Vibrant Genre Musical
Although it’s assembled from unlikely, even questionable sources, Jacques Audiard’s latest feature, Emilia Pérez, a genre...
The Apprentice | Review
The Devil and Donald Trump: Abbasi Reconstructs the Rise of a Crony Capitalist
Among the many wise observations written by nineteenth century Englishman Lord Acton,...
Daaaaaali! | Review
Good Golly, It’s Dali: Dupieux Dreams Surreal in Distinctive Biopic
It seems surrealism’s pioneer Salvador Dali is experiencing something of a culturally concentric resurgence as...
The Universal Theory (Die Theorie Von Allem) | Review
Multiverse of Sadness: Kroger Captivates with Cryptic Cold War Sci-Fi Exploit
Although it will invariably be confused with the 2014 Stephen Hawking biopic, Timm Kröger’s...
Matt and Mara | Review
Friends Forever: Radwanski Reteams With Deragh Campbell For Another Captivating Character Study In Close-Up
The tension between a friendship that’s too close for comfort and...
Hard Truths | 2024 Toronto Intl. Film Festival Review
Take A Chance On Love: Mike Leigh Delivers A Late Career Powerhouse
You can’t help but wonder if Mike Leigh is making a sly joke...
Hoard | Review
M is for the Many Things You Gave Me: Grief Becomes the Remedy in Carmoon’s Debut
“Time heals all old pain, while it creates new...
Sicilian Letters (Iddu) | 2024 Venice Film Festival Review
Letters to Daddy: Grassadonia & Piazza Continue Their Cosa Nostra Sagas
Italian directors Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza reimagine the circumstances surrounding yet another mafioso...
Diva Futura | 2024 Venice Film Festival Review
Erotic Stagnancy: Steigerwalt’s Depthless Approach of a Italian Porn Heyday
There’s a formidably compelling subject matter at the heart of Giulia Louise Steigerwalt’s sophomore film...
