★★★★☆ Putting her talents behind the camera, Chilean actor-turned-director Manuela Martelli’s debut feature is a gripping study of paranoia during the early years of the Pinochet regime. As historical noir, Martelli’s film is thrilling, but as a document of the comforts of complicity and the terror of resistance, 1976 is visceral.
★★★☆☆ Her first film as director since 2017’s heady study of adolescence, Ava, Léa Mysius’ latest is an oft-gripping magical-realist mystery drama with faint whiffs of horror. While The Five Devils doesn’t quite have the clarity of vision of her previous picture, its emotion, erotically-charged themes and puzzle-box structure leave much to recommend.
★★★☆☆ It’s 1918, and the elderly woman that terrorised the screaming youths of X is still a tender young thing, stuck on her parents’ farm and dreaming of a life of stardom in faraway Hollywood. How far removed from that wizened psychotic killer this cherubic vision now stands.
★★★★☆ In UK cinemas now following a successful festival run, Victoria Fiore’s Nascondino (or Hide & Seek to give it its English title) is a heart-breaking, naturalistic study of 10-year-old Entoni as he grows up in the Spanish quarter of Naples, an area where organised crime is endemic.
★★★☆☆ Encompassing the years leading up to the war in Ukraine, Ruslan Batytskyi and Lesya Kalynska’s debut feature is a worthy study of one man’s journey from the Maidan Square Revolution to the current conflict. A Rising Fury documents the life of one of many thousands caught up in Putin’s war.
★★★★★ Following his acclaimed feature debut Bait, Cornish-born director Mark Jenkin returns with a haunting, enigmatic folk horror. Whereas Bait was a lament for a way of life swallowed up by mindless urbanite tourism, Enys Men is a hymn to sublime, endless time and the hauntedness of existence.
★★★★☆ The livelihoods of three generations of Catalonian peach farmers come under threat when a developer tries to evict the family from the land they have spent their lives farming. Director Carla Simón’s Alcarràs is at once a paean to family, community and a dwindling way of life, and a complex and heartbreaking study of the victims of progress.
★★★☆☆ François Ozon remakes Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1972 film The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant. Sumptuously shot and compellingly performed, this worthy remake of the celebrated original is a handsome work in its own right and is an affectionate tribute to its German predecessor.
It’s hard not to draw parallels with the fatigue we’re all feeling and the current landscape of cinema, not least a ‘best of’ list that this year so strongly reflects a sense of social anxiety, alienation and division. Topping our list (just beating Martin McDonagh’s superbly gothic The Banshees of Inisherin) is Aftersun.
★★☆☆☆ Thirteen years after James Cameron’s long-awaited return with 2009’s Avatar, here comes James Cameron’s second long-awaited return with Avatar: The Way of Water. The franchise opener was a global phenomenon, smashing box office records and ushering in a new era of 3D filmmaking.
★★★★☆ Shot over the course of a school year, Maria Speth’s sixth feature captures the lives of a class of German 14-year-olds. At almost four hours in length, Mr. Bachmann and His Class is long, but its enormous characters and emotions more than fill the space, headed by an astonishingly charismatic teacher.
★★☆☆☆ Carlos Rafael Betancourt and Oscar Ernesto Ortega stage a two-hander about an abusive relationship, in which middle-aged David (Jonathan Del Arco) lures Justin (Héctor Medina) to his home. A strong premise is sadly let down by narrative contrivance and sophomoric psychology.
★★★★☆ 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.