Film reviews and more
★★★★★ “All plots tend to move deathward. This is the nature of plots.” we are told early on in Noah Baumbach’s new film White Noise. Not since Alvy Singer bought Annie Hall all those books about death has there been such a funny and richly intelligent investigation of the particularly American anxiety about death.
★★☆☆☆ We all have directors that we don’t seem to get on with. We might admire their technical prowess or their commitment, but for some reason we just don’t click. For this critic, that’s the Dardenne brothers – Jean-Pierre and Luc – the Belgian filmmaking team that have brought a series of modern classics.
★★★★☆ With Lynch/Oz, renowned film studies documentarian Alexandre O. Philippe turns his attention to the celebrated, surrealist oeuvre of David Lynch: in particular, the director’s recurring fascination (arguably, obsession) with 1939’s MGM classic The Wizard of Oz.
Returning for its 26th edition and with 2021’s Covid restrictions largely a thing of the past, Tallinn’s Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) this year crowned Hilmar Oddsson’s Icelandic dark comedy Driving Mum as the 2022 Grand Prix winner, with the Best Director award going to Ahmad Bahrami for thriller The Wastetown.
★★★★☆ A chance encounter between a pharmacist and a footballer opens up a world of magic and romance in Aleksandre Koberidze’s second feature, an endlessly enchanting fable from the Georgian director. Its story and emotions are as universal and quotidian as they come.
Coming from a background in photography and cinematography, Alejandro Loayza Grisi embarked on his directorial career with Utama, the tale of an elderly Quechua couple wrangling llamas in the Bolivian highlands.
★★★★☆ Alejando Loayza Grisi’s award-winning debut feature, Utama is an understated but spectacularly mounted drama about an ageing Quechua couple tending llamas on the edge of civilisation. They live in a very modest stone house that looks out onto the Bolivian altiplano.
★★★☆☆ Maria Schrader’s She Said goes behind the scenes of how The New York Times journalists led the charge in bringing down Harvey Weinstein. One of the most successful film producers of all time, he was also a sexual predator who used his wealth, privilege and power to destroy the lives of countless women.
★★★★★ Bones and All is a savage, swooning 1980s-set tale of first love and finding one’s place in the world. Observational but mysterious, also political and anti-nostalgic, Luca Guadagnino’s road trip to the States finds equal amounts of horror and beauty at every turn.
★★★★★ Parents are normal people too. They might not seem it but once you have a kid, you become a care provider, a hotelier, a therapist, a nurse, a taxi driver, a chef and a thousand other things. You become mum or dad and the idea that you too might have a life is something that shrinks.
★★★★☆ Whether it’s the neo-noir of We Own the Night, the ménage à trois of Two Lovers, or the sad-dad-in-space opera of Ad Astra, Gray has managed to pursue an intensely personal vision through a variety of genres. Now he’s back in UK cinemas with a more down to earth offering.
★★★☆☆ King T’Challa is dead, but the Kingdom of Wakanda must live on. After the tragic death of franchise star Chadwick Boseman, so too must the Marvel machine roll on and so, somehow, the Black Panther series must continue without its lead.