Film reviews and more
★★☆☆☆ Portugal’s economic crisis is explored through the strained dynamic of a family slowing falling apart in Teresa Villaverde’s austerity drama Colo. You wouldn’t know it by the clothes she wears or the furniture in their well-appointed apartment but the […]
★★★★☆ Most of us at some point have experienced a moment in a dream where you realise you are asleep but are utterly powerless to affect any change to the narrative your brain has spun. This sensation continues to fascinate […]
★★★★☆ In 1983, a group of young people from relatively privileged backgrounds attempted to hijack a plane and fly to the West from Soviet-controlled Georgia. With his fourth feature Hostages, Rezo Gigineishvili gives a bleakly thrilling account of the tragedy […]
★★☆☆☆ Laura Schroeder’s Barrage, the intriguing tale of three generations of women navigating the roles of mother and daughter, has gained a lot of attention due to the casting of Isabelle Huppert opposite her real-life daughter Lolita Chammah. Sadly, Huppert’s […]
★★★☆☆ Daniela Thomas’ Vazante is a minor Greek tragedy transposed to colonial Brazil. A slow-burning drama about slavery in all its forms, this austere, visually striking film combines a harrowing period of Brazilian history with devastating accuracy of emotion. Vazante […]
★★★★☆ Is it mythology or tradition that holds societies together? That’s the question posed by Aktan Arym Kubat’s Centaur, a profoundly moving tale about life in rural Kyrgyzstan that’s defined by its simple, heartbreaking approach. Ancient tales and folklore about […]
★★★★☆ An exquisitely rendered study of entitlement and millennial dissatisfaction, Alex Ross Perry returns to the Berlinale with his fifth feature, Golden Exits. Starring Jason Schwartzman, Mary-Louise Parker, Chloë Sevigny and Emily Browning, Perry’s latest is a sprawling ensemble piece […]
★★★★☆ With their debut feature In Bloom, directing duo Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Gross showed how even after Georgia gained its independence in the 1990s, its women remained constrained by a staunchly patriarchal society. Their follow-up turns the clocks forward […]
★★★☆☆ To 13-year-old Dayveon (Devin Blackmon), who we first encounter cycling down a deserted Arkansas street, “everything is stupid”. The concrete, the houses, the trees, even the sky above him; “everything is stupid”. A stream of consciousness made spatial, Amman […]
The 67th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival kicks off this Thursday with Etienne Comar’s Django, a biopic about the late jazz guitarist and composer Django Reinhardt. Born into a gypsy family, Reinhardt’s nomadic roots beautifully bookend the themes […]
★★★★☆ When history is violently forced from its intended path by the outbreak of war, it’s society’s poorest and neglected who suffer most. Ta’ang, the latest film from documentarian Wang Bing, focuses on the lives of the numerous refugees living […]
★★★☆☆ “You can do it as a hobby, but what are you ever going to do with art?” This was the attitude of Robert Mapplethorpe’s father, Harry, who never understood the desire of his mischievous, provocative artistically-inclined son. Robert would […]