Berlin 2015: ‘Victoria’ review
★★★☆☆ There is no digital trickery or sleight of hand in Sebastian Schipper’s one-take wonder Victoria (2015). Ostensibly a contemporary Bonnie and Clyde with...
Directors Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett’s “Abigail” mashes up crime caper and monster movie, but fails to deliver fear or humor. Spoilery trailers and unoriginal characters overshadow promising elements, resulting in a dull, lifeless experience lacking creativity and wit.
★★★★☆ In Alex Garland’s Civil War, a group of journalists embark on a road trip to interview the US President amidst a second American Civil War, while exploring media’s dehumanizing relationship with violence.
★★★★☆ Having won the Jury Prize in 2013 for Like Father, Like Son and the Palme d’Or in 2018 with Shoplifters, Cannes favourite and Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda returns with Monster, a masterful work of intricate storytelling, complemented by a lovely score by the late Ryuichi Sakamoto.
★★★★★ Theodor Adorno famously wrote that poetry was not possible after Auschwitz, but is cinema? Billy Wilder certainly thought so, getting footage from the camps as evidence as much as anything else. Steven Spielberg, Claude Lanzmann, Alain Resnais and Roberto Benigni have all with differing degrees of success tried their hands.
★★★☆☆ There is no digital trickery or sleight of hand in Sebastian Schipper’s one-take wonder Victoria (2015). Ostensibly a contemporary Bonnie and Clyde with...
★★★★★ A major work from Jafar Panahi screens in competition at the Berlin Film Festival as again the Iranian director challenges the ban on...
★★★☆☆ Jayro Bustamante’s debut Ixcanul (2015) is a profoundly humanistic inquiry into the trafficking of Mayan children in North America. Focusing on the daily...
★★★★☆ Mark Dornford-May won Berlin’s Golden Bear in 2005 for U-Carmen, his adaptation of Bizet’s opera. He obviously hopes for similar success with his...