John Bleasdale

★★☆☆☆ French director Claire Denis has maintained a wonderful run, from her 1998 debut Chocolat to recent efforts such as 36 Shots of Rum and White Material. Her latest, Bastards (Les Salauds, 2013), shows not in the main competition at Cannes – which, as ever, is woefully short on women – but instead in the…

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★★★☆☆ Director Jia Zhangke returns to Cannes this year with A Touch of Sin (2013), a powerful portrait of contemporary China told through the stories of four different provincial characters. Dahai (Jiang Wu) is a disappointed villager, exasperated by the corruption around him and specifically the sale of a local mine to private interests. He…

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★★★★☆ Heli (Armando Espitia), the protagonist of Amat Escalante’s 2013 Palme d’Or nominee of the same name, is a young Mexican who lives with his father, his son, his young wife (Linda Gonzalez) and 12-year-old sister, Estella (Andrea Vergara). He’s prone to bad luck, keen on his naps and, when a census taker comes to…

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★★★★☆ One of numerous films to make its way to London from the Cannes, Alex van Warmerdam’s Borgman (2013) is the darkest of dark horses: an obsidian black comedy with a surreal and genuinely vicious ‘eat the rich’ ethic that might just pinch a prize. The film opens with a beautifully ludicrous scene as three…

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★★☆☆☆ Following on from Baz Luhrmann’s tipsy take on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age classic The Great Gatsby, actor/director James Franco offers Cannes the second major literary adaptation from a canonical American author. Adapted faithfully by Franco himself from William Faulkner’s novel, As I Lay Dying (2013) tells the tale of the Bundren family. Following…

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★★★★★ American director J.C. Chandor first made a name for himself with 2011 talkathon Margin Call, which strove to present the 07-08 financial crisis to us as if we were, “a small child, or a golden retriever”. His follow-up film, All Is Lost (2013) – screening out of competition at this year’s Cannes – has…

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★★★☆☆ Following the success of Un Certain Regard favourite Drive back in 2011, Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn returns to the Croisette with Only God Forgives (2013), a stylish if ultimately shallow essay in extremism. Julian (Ryan Gosling) is a Muay Thai boxing club owner and drug dealer living in Bangkok along with older brother…

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★★★☆☆ Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s latest feature, Cannes contender Grigris (2013), recounts a tale of hope against despair in the director’s native African country of Chad. It tells the story of the titular Grigris (played by Souleymane Deme), a young man whose ambition is to be a dancer despite having a paralysed leg. He’s a generous and positive…

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★★☆☆☆ “There’s just no telling” says Bob (Casey Affleck) close to the end of David Lowery’s Texas-based criminal romance Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (2013), screening in the Critics Week sidebar of Cannes. It seems a strange statement, coming after so much talk. Bob and Ruth (Rooney Mara) are childhood sweethearts. She’s a poor girl, expecting…

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★★★☆☆ Il Divo and This Must Be the Place director Paolo Sorrentino returns to Italian cinema (with a capital ‘I’ and a capital ‘C’) courtesy of The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza, 2013), a visual tour-de-force that strives to fulfil its own title. Long-time Sorrentino collaborator Tony Servillo stars as the film’s protagonist Jep Gambardella:…

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