★★★★☆ One of several high profile documentaries screening at this year’s 64th Berlin Film Festival, veteran filmmaker Errol Morris presents The Unknown Known (2013), a brilliant one-on-one with one of the most influential figures in American politics over the last three decades: Donald Rumsfeld. Having served under three previous US Continue Reading
★★★★☆ The uncut first half of Danish enfant terrible Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac (2013) was unleashed as nature intended last week Out of Competition at this year’s 64th Berlinale. It’s as bonkers as you would expect, but not at the expense of being brazenly philosophical, psychologically stimulating and – most Continue Reading
★★☆☆☆ In recent years, climate change has become one of the dominant themes of dystopian film narratives, reflecting a growing acceptance that global warming isn’t merely the stuff of science fiction. Nguyễn-Võ Nghiêm-Minh’s Nuoc 2030 (2014) is a near-future parable set in a world where rising seas have displaced the Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ A damming portrait of a community tearing itself apart from the inside, Benjamín Naishtat’s Berlinale Competition offering History of Fear (2014) ponders the future outcome of a world governed through fear and paranoia. Opening with an aerial shot surveying the film’s gated Buenos Aires compound, History of Fear presents Continue Reading
★★☆☆☆ Blind Massage (Tui na, 2014), adapted from Bi Feiyu’s eponymous novel, is Chinese director Lou Ye’s second feature following his State-imposed filmmaking ban. Shot with a mixed cast of professional and non-professional blind actors and boasting a highly developed aptitude for visual storytelling, Ye’s latest is a sensual poem Continue Reading