Ben Nicholson

★★★☆☆ “Like a murderer jumping outta nowhere in an alley, love has jumped in front of us, like a lightning strike.” This may seem a bizarre way to describe a relationship but in fact it perfectly captures the essence of the strange psycho-sexual bond that lies at the twisted heart of Remy Bennett and Émilie…

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★★★★☆ There are some films that are defined, or at least deeply coloured by the power and poetry of their final scenes. Christian Petzold’s Phoenix (2014) is a fine film in its own right, but is elevated by the emotional upper-cut of its conclusion. So too Pablo Larrain’s Post Mortem (2010) conjures great effect from…

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★★★★☆ “Heaven forbid if he ever comes back,” intones a village elder as Martin Lepiš, otherwise known as ‘Dragon’ (Radovan Lukavský), is led, restrained, into exile. This sequence is told in flashback to give context to the thick atmosphere of Eduard Grečner’s Dragon’s Return (1968). A brooding and mythic drama, it tells a simple folktale…

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★★★☆☆ Commonly referred to as the ‘Father Knows Best Trilogy’, Ang Lee’s first three films are notable primarily as an introduction to key themes and his devotion to nuanced emotional drama. They also staved off the retirement of famous Taiwanese actor Sihung Lung. Almost a decade before his appearance as Sir Te in Crouching Tiger,…

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★★★☆☆ Isolation is the key material that paves the shadowy narrative alleyways of Brian Hill’s The Confessions of Thomas Quick (2015). At one stage it’s pinpointed as the underlying motivating factor for a truly remarkable story that saw the emergence of Sweden’s first serial killer in the 1990s. Through a series of unconventional psychiatric sessions…

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★★★☆☆ The word ‘outlaw’ is one that conjures various associations. One definition describes a career criminal, but another a non-conformist; popular culture tends to employ the term romantically – outlaws are the likes of Robin Hood and Jesse James. So it is that Tyke Elephant Outlaw (2015) tugs on the heartstrings before it’s even started…

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★★★★☆ A small farmstead is beset by a gang of ruthless mercenaries attempting to coerce the inhabitants from their land until a mysterious loner arrives to put an end to the injustice. Clearly modelled on a familiar western narrative, Pablo Fendrik’s The Burning (2014) both embraces and playfully inverts the tropes that define its genre…

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★★★☆☆ This was supposed to be the year of Al Pacino’s big comeback. Instead, the lamentable The Humbling (2014), which saw the venerable actor indulged as an unstable monologuing thesp, snuck straight onto DVD in the UK as The Last Act. Meanwhile, Danny Collins (2015) received a theatrical release in this country, but was an…

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★★★☆☆ The discovery of sexual identity propels Sophie Hyde’s 52 Tuesdays (2013). A woman struggles to impose masculinity on her body during a gender reassignment, while her adolescent daughter is overwhelmed by her own burgeoning womanhood. Formally striking, discussion will undoubtedly be dominated by the shooting schedule which – reminiscent of last year’s indie darling,…

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