★★★★★ It’s a quarter of a century since La Haine‘s original release, its win for Best Director at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival and its stunning worldwide acclaim. Mathieu Kassovitz’s account of police brutality is as ferocious a punch in the stomach as it was twenty-five years ago, and retains every spark of an explosive Continue Reading
★★★★☆ When one door closes in I’m Thinking of Ending Things, some are locked, others left ajar and one which opens memories long buried in the basement is definitely off limits. Director Charlie Kaufman leads us on a not-so-merry dance across these thresholds, literal and figurative, and into the beguiling, Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Reminiscent of the 2011 crowd-pleaser Les Intouchables, Grégory Magne’s Perfumes is a charming, unconventional, odd-couple buddy movie of sorts, which crisscrosses an autumnal France with the highly cultured nose of sourpuss recluse, Anne (Emmanuelle Devos), in search of smelly solutions to her myriad clients’ needs. And though he may Continue Reading
★★★★☆ There’s much more to Oeke Hoogendijk’s My Rembrandt than initially meets the eye. Taking a close, curatorial look, not at the life, times and oeuvre of the great painter himself, but of contemporary relationships with his work, her latest documentary explores, to great effect, the motives for possession, obsession Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Is there ever honour in betrayal? If the system to which you swore a blood allegiance no longer upholds its traditional values, should you not speak out against it? The moral ambiguities and questions of legacy, friendship, family and integrity in Marco Bellochio’s The Traitor are the strongest points Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Censorship of the free press isn’t an invention of the Trump administration. In spite of the plumes of cigarette smoke, angry chattering of typewriter keys and now antiquated passage of information, which ground The Post in its milieu of early 1970s Washington DC, there are significant parallels to our Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Much like the serene community of Zen Buddhists who have committed to a life of tranquility and inner calm under the tutelage of mindfulness guru Thich Nhat Hanh, enjoyment of meditative documentary Walk with Me depends largely on whether or not a viewer is prepared to sign up to Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Venturing into its blood-soaked history and the atrocities which shaped American society, Scott Cooper’s Hostiles is an unflinching exploration of the unspeakable cruelty of which human kind is capable, and culpable. However, in contrast to the pessimism of a D. H. Lawrence quote which prefaces a truly galling opening Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ The phrase “Do you know who I am?” takes on a new meaning in Sonia Kronlund’s The Prince of Nothingwood, an idiosyncratic documentary revealing an unseen side to Afghan life and culture. For though a global audience may have little prior knowledge of prolific B-movie filmmaker Salim Shaheen, every Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Alex Gibney’s latest project, No Stone Unturned, is a mysterious, gripping re-opening of the unsolved 1994 Loughinisland massacre investigation. It is told with characteristic precision, compassion and determination by its prolific director. Searching for needles in haystacks has long been Gibney’s metier but here the smoke and mirrors of Continue Reading
★★★★★ Trouble lurks around every corner in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 thriller North by Northwest. Sinister motives, international espionage and a captivating beauty have ad exec Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) on the run from the law across the USA.Throughout his career the Master of Suspense frequently pushed innocent, unsuspecting men into Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Meticulously crafted over a seven-year period, Loving Vincent is a visually wondrous biographical ode to the great impressionist and an animation like no other, comprised of 65,000 frames individually hand-painted by over one hundred artists. The sheer ambition and scope of this labour of love is an astonishing achievement. Continue Reading
★★★★★ Based on Antonio di Benedetto’s 1956 novel, Lucrecia Martel’s Zama is a beguiling, haunting, comic indictment of the ills of colonialism. Centred on the existential woes of a lowly magistrate, it examines the crushing stasis and ultimate evil of empire. An allegorical reckoning of perpetual struggle, recounted to the Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Pulling no punches in telling the true story of Scouse ne’er-do-well Billy Moore’s three years in Bangkok’s infamous Klong Prem Prison, Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s A Prayer Before Dawn wins points for its unerring depiction of the brutality of incarceration in Thailand. The film is an unflinching, punishing spectacle which drops Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Few British actors can lay claim to the kind of performance which we have come to expect and appreciate from Paddy Considine. Journeyman, which Considine writes, directs and stars in as champion boxer Matty Burton, is further proof of his impressive versatility.Six years on from the near unanimous praise Continue Reading