Tag: World Cinema review
The Beast in the Jungle | 2023 Berlin Film Festival Review
Waiting for the Stars to Align: Chiha Finds Fruit Rotting on the Vine
“Good things come to those who wait” might be a commonly bastardized...
Return to Seoul | Review
Do You Know Where You’re Going To?: Chou Explores Identity & Adoption Through Complex Character Portrait
Davy Chou returns with an intimate, unpredictable portrait of...
Pacifiction (Tourment sur les îles) | Review
Tropical Malady: Control is an Illusion in Serra’s Colonialist Quagmire
Literally and figuratively, Pacifiction (Tourment sur les îles), the latest from the cerebral Spanish director Albert...
A Radiant Girl (Une jeune fille qui va bien) | Review
Games of Hate & Chance: Kiberlain Curates Characterization with Tragic Wartime Portrait
In the eye of a swiftly gathering storm in the summer of 1942,...
Close | Review
The Children’s Hour: Dhont Explores Unspoken Realities in Masterful Drama
The essence of Close, the sophomore film from Belgium’s Lukas Dhont, is akin to the...
Un beau matin (One Fine Morning) | Review
All the Mornings in the World: Seydoux Burns Bright in Hansen-Love’s Moving Drama
Hannah Arendt succinctly remarked on the inference between 'doing' and 'understanding' in...
Cairo Conspiracy | Review
You Gotta Have Faith: Saleh Explores Corruption of Institutions in Procedural Thriller
“Power is a double edged sword. Sometimes it cuts the hand that wields...
Nostalgia | Review
You Can’t Go Home Again: Martone’s Latest Asserts the Past is a Dangerous Place
In yet another foray into the teeming possibilities of Naples, Mario...
The Son | Review
The Tragedy of Privilege: Zeller’s Familial Identity Trilogy Continues with Maudlin Chapter
The highly revered and internationally renowned playwright Florian Zeller has a formidable talent...
Infinity Pool | Review
The Dualists: Cronenberg Doubles Down on Class Cliches
“Sorrow is concealed in gilded places, and there’s no escaping it,” wrote Fyodor Dostoevsky in his...
When It Melts | 2023 Sundance Film Festival Review
Vengeance on a Wet Afternoon: Baetens Prepares a Fatal Reckoning in Grim Debut
Home is most certainly not where the heart is in When It...
Saint Omer | Review
Parallel Mothers: Diop Explores Monstrousness and Motherhood in Provocative Courtroom Drama
For her narrative feature debut Saint Omer, Alice Diop builds an agonizing and elegant...
Alcarràs | Review
Peach Be With You: Simon Harvests Bitter Reality in Solid, Steady Family Drama
Returning to the rural experiences which defined her 2017 debut Summer of...
Broker | Review
Be My Little Baby: Kore-eda Gets Weepy with Sentimental Adoption Drama
Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan’s esteemed purveyor of domestic melancholy, continues with his bid for...
No Bears | Review
Blow-Out: Twice Told Tales Unfold in Panahi’s Layered Docufiction
Borders and Boundaries and Bears, Oh My! The perpetually hobbled Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi continues to...
Corsage | Review
Waist of Time: Sissi is no Sissy in Kreutzer’s Rebel Biopic
The foreboding restraints of an upper body female garment figuratively represent the repression and...
The Eternal Daughter | Review
I Remember Mama: Hogg Explores Film as Memento Mori in Gloomy Ghost Story
Our own memories are the ghosts haunting us, or at least the...
200 Meters | Review
Faraway, So Close: Nayfeh Showcases Absurdity’s Segue to Tragedy in Meaningful Debut
The ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine is one of several contemporary global...
Eo | Review
Donkey Skin: Skolimowski Restages Bresson for the Modern Age
Robert Bresson’s 1966 film Au Hasard Balthazar is considered a masterpiece, though its reputation took a...
The Wonder | Review
Power Surge: Lelio Ponders power and the profound in his latest which attempts to grapple with the nature of storytelling itself
“This is the beginning...
Un Couple | Review
A Human Voice: Wiseman Explores Catharsis and Suppression in Tranquil Soliloquy
It’s no secret the Tolstoy household was also unhappy in its own unhappy way...
La caja (The Box) | Review
Father Knows Best: Vigas Caps His Father/Son Trilogy with Blunt Brutality
In his long-gestating follow-up to 2014 Golden Lion winner From Afar, Venezuela’s Lorenzo Vigas...
Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths | Review
The Unexpected Virtue of Indulgence: Iñárritu Repeats Himself with Repetitive, Soulless Extravaganza
“The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple,” said Oscar...
Holy Spider | Review
Thrill Crazy. Kill Crazy. God Crazy: Abbasi Tackles Brutal Reality of Women and Islamofascism
“Every man shall meet what he wishes to avoid,” is the...
All Quiet On The Western Front (2022) | Review
War is Hell: Germany’s Oscar Entry Delivers Blunt & Brutal Depiction of WWI
The most haunting image in filmmaker Edward Berger’s latest take on All...
Peaceful (De son vivant) | Review
The Big C Minus: Bercot Submerges Maudlin Disease Drama with Sentimentality
Cancer isn’t the only element degrading the lives of those defined by it in...
Kalev | 2022 Warsaw Intl. Film Festival Review
Kalev Scores a 3-Pointer: Musting’s Sports Drama is a Love Letter to Estonia’s Iconic Basketball Team
The Estonian basketball team Kalev might not be a...
The Banshees of Inisherin | Review
When Demon Voices Wake Us: McDonagh Charts a Bad Bromance in Dark, Delightful Drama
The abrupt end to a lifelong relationship provides the basis for...
Sisters | 2022 Warsaw Intl. Film Festival Review
Adult children: Girl Blazes Through Childhood in Olte's Debut
Frantically moving and tweaking, the handheld camera desperately tries not to lose focus of a stone-faced...
Brother’s Keeper | Review
School Ties: Karahan Paints a Chilly Scene of Winter in Boarding School Melodrama
The numbing apathy of poverty chained to tireless bureaucracy is met with...
Rock. Paper. Grenade | 2022 Warsaw Intl. Film Festival Review
Three-time Jumps: Tsilyk’s Debut is a Light Look at the 90s in Ukraine
A man and a boy - the former a fully written text,...
Traces | 2022 Warsaw Intl. Film Festival Review
Traces of Sadness: Turić Connects Past & Present Through Anthropology
In her feature debut Traces, Dubravka Turić tells the story of a woman searching for...
Shreds | 2022 Warsaw Intl. Film Festival Review
Destructive Caring: Family Falls Apart in Dzianowicz’s Latest
Shreds is the story of Gerard (Grzegorz Przybył), a man in his sixties, living with his son’s...
Decision to Leave | Review
Suspicious Minds: Park-wook Returns with Thriller of Diminishing Returns
For the first hour of its lengthy running time, Decision to Leave, Park Chan-wook’s first theatrical...
Stars at Noon | Review
White Material: Denis Heats Up with Sinister, Nervy Romance
Claire Denis leaves behind the Sandinistas of 1984 Nicaragua for Stars at Noon, based on the...
Triangle of Sadness | Review
Voyage of the Damned: Östlund Frowns Down Upon Hardwired Human Folly in Devious Satire
Ruben Östlund has built an impressive filmography satirizing social norms, with...
God’s Creatures | Review
Come On, Aileen: Holmer & Davis Craft Old-Fashioned, Straightforward Thriller
Parents lying to protect their children’s potentially heinous crimes is a popular motif in arthouse...
Argentina, 1985 | Review
Orders from Above: Mitre Recounts Landmark Trial in Lengthy Courtroom Procedural
In 1976, Isabel Perón, wife of the deceased Juan Perón, was deposed as the...
Petrov’s Flu | Review
Delirium Tremens: Serebrennikov Maddens with Post-Soviet Magical Realism
Historically, Russian cinema (and literature) always tends to go for broke. Challenging narratives, endless characters, and opulent...
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...
