Tag: Foreign Film Review
Black Tea | 2024 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Spill the Tea: Sissako Flounders with Tepid Brew
The level of ineptitude apparent in every regard of Black Tea, Abderrahmane Sissako’s first narrative feature in...
Gloria! | 2024 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Music of the Heart: Vicario Pays Symphonic Homage to Erased History
Composer Margherita Vicario makes her directorial debut with Gloria!, a period piece recuperating a...
Foreign Tongue (Langue étrangère) | 2024 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Tongues Untied: Love Lies Easy in Burger’s Cross Culture Coming of Age Drama
There’s a lot going on in Claire Burger’s third film, Foreign Tongue...
Raíz (Through Rocks and Clouds) | 2024 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
A Walk in the Clouds: Becerra Mines Escapism and Innocence in Quiet Drama
A dwindling group of alpaca herders find themselves on the verge...
My New Friends (Les gens d’à côté) | 2024 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Your Friends & Neighbors: Téchiné Tries for Ethical Sentiments
Now in his eighties, director André Téchiné continues his steady, perennial output with the humanist melodrama...
Dying (Sterben) | 2024 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Family Matters: Glasner’s Sprawling Portrait of Chaotic Dysfunction
Exemplifying Tolstoy’s famous Anna Karenina quote on ‘every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,’ German...
Some Rain Must Fall | 2024 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Mistress of Misery: Yang Explores the Turmoil of Transformation
Here comes the rain again, falling on her head like a tragedy. Or so is the...
Reas | 2024 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Caged Birds Singing: Arias Re-enacts Prison Experiences
If Orange is the New Black was being workshopped as a community theater musical, it might resemble something...
My Summer with Irène | 2024 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Summertime Sadness: Sironi Escapes to Sicily in Oblique Friendship Drama
There’s no running away from the past, no matter how glorious the sun dappled idyll...
Another End | 2024 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
The Power of Goodbye: Messina Gets Maudlin with Future Grief
The devil’s unfortunately absent in the details of Another End, a conceptual science fiction melodrama...
Arcadia | 2024 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
None of Us Strangers: Zois Probes Unrest of Our Shadows
“It is a defect of God’s humor that he directs our hearts everywhere but to...
From Hilde, With Love | 2024 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Germany, Pale Mother: Dresen Locates the Good Germans of WWII
It comes as no surprise an old-fashioned director such Andreas Dresen is adept at making...
Hors du Temps (Suspended Time) | 2024 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Time Regained: Assayas Agonizes in Pretentious Pandemic Reflection
In what stands as evidence of a surprising lack of self-awareness, director Olivier Assayas reenacts a composite...
My Favorite Cake | 2024 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Layer Cake: Moghaddam & Sanaeeha Find Love in a Hopeless Place
If ever there were a film depicting how one cannot have their cake and...
The Editorial Office | 2024 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
The Winds of War: Bondarchuk Straddles a World On a Wire
While it should play like an absurdist black comedy, Roman Bondarchuk’s sophomore narrative feature...
Perdidos en la noche (Lost in the Night) | Review
Night Moves: Escalante Cultivates a Moody, Capricious Mystery
Replete with a slew of customary features encountered in a fatalistic film noir, Amat Escalante’s fifth feature,...
Interview: Tran Anh Hung – The Taste of Things
In the Cannes Best Director-winning, The Taste of Things (aka The Pot-au-Feu) the passage of time is measured in teaspoons, tablespoons and table manners....
The Taste of Things | Review
Where’s the Beef?: Tran Anh Hung Activates the Salivary Glands
Gastronomy has never seemed so forlornly romantic as it is in Tran Anh Hung’s sumptuous...
Perfect Days | Review
Road to Nowhere: Wenders Welcomes the Pleasures of a Simple Life in Quiet Drama
In his most successfully realized narrative feature in years, Wim Wenders...
Disco Boy | Review
Mal Travaille: Abbruzzese Finds the Rhythm of the Night in Hypnotic Debut
“E’en hell hath its peculiar laws,” remarked Faust in Goethe’s eternal classic, the...
Grey Bees | 2024 International Film Festival Rotterdam Review
Life During Wartime: Dmytro Moiseiev Chronicles Everyday Survival In Donbass Before Russia’s Invasion
How did life go on for people living in the grey zone...
Steppenwolf | 2024 International Film Festival Rotterdam Review
Move Over John Wick: Adilkhan Yerzhanov Unleashes A Bloody Tale Of Vengeance In His Latest Feature
Bleak, bloody, and bullet-riddled, the latest from prolific Kazakh...
Flathead | 2024 International Film Festival Rotterdam Review
Days And Nights In Bundaberg: Jaydon Martin’s Docu-Fiction Journey Leaves Outsiders Adrift
Falling under an atmospheric shadow of loss and regret, Flathead, the directorial debut...
Me, Maryam, the Children and 26 Others | 2024 International Film Festival Rotterdam Review
Camera Crew: Filmmakers Become Family In Farshad Hashemi’s Quietly Defiant Meta-Movie
The problem with being lonely isn’t being alone, it’s how easy it can be...
Swimming Home | 2024 International Film Festival Rotterdam Review
Marriage Story: Justin Anderson Serves Up An Enigmatic Challenge Is His Feature Debut
A marriage in crisis cooks under the summer sun in filmmaker Justin...
Tótem | Review
Life and Death of the Party: Aviles’ Bustling Ensemble Piece Balances Pain & Profundity
Taking place over the course of one frenetic day, Lila...
Under the Fig Trees | Review
Figment of their Imagination: Sehiri’s Baskets Filled with Hope, Humor and Harsh Truths
There is a lot more behind the scenes drama that goes into...
Mambar Pierrette | Review
In Fabric: Mbakam Conveys a Season’s Struggles in Cameroon
“In the ant’s house, the dew is a flood,” might be the proverbial dilemma faced by...
In the Land of Brothers | 2024 Sundance Film Festival Review
Family of Straw: Amirfazli & Ghasemi Present a Trilogy of Familial Tragedies
The title, of course, is a bitter irony relating to Iran’s self-anointed nickname,...
Malu | 2024 Sundance Film Festival Review
A Streetcar Named Desejo: Freire Mines Matriarchal Tendencies
Having directed several short films and television series, Brazilian director Pedro Freire unleashes a motherlode of intergenerational...
Veni Vidi Vici | 2024 Sundance Film Festival Review
Destroy Everything You Touch: Hoesl & Riemann Come to Conquer with Dark Satire
As ABBA once succinctly stated, “Money, money money/Must be funny/In a rich...
Sujo | 2024 Sundance Film Festival Review
Goodbye Horses: Valadez & Rondero Explore a Valley of Violence
Working as co-directors on their latest feature Sujo, Fernanda Valadez and Astrid Rondero once again...
The Settlers | Review
Once Upon a Time in Chile: Haberle Crafts Colonialist Past as a Vicious Western
A quote from Sir Thomas More’s Utopia opens Felipe Gálvez’s sinister...
Memory | Review
Remembrance of Things Past: Franco Bargains for Benevolence in Purgative Love Story
“Memory is something so complex that no list of all its attributes could...
A Male (Un Varón) | Review
Wild in the Streets: Hernandez Explores Toxic Trifecta of Violence, Masculinity and Poverty in Dour Debut
With a streetwise miserabilism as virile as anything from...
Poor Things | Review
The Story of O: Lanthimos Mesmerizes with Fiercely Compelling Frankenstein Tale
“Men have constructed female sexuality and in so doing have annihilated the chance for...
The Zone of Interest | Review
Verboten Zone: Glazer Returns with Historical Horror
It’s impossible to contemplate Jonathan Glazer’s fourth feature, The Zone of Interest, without referencing Hannah Arendt’s publication on...
La syndicaliste | Review
Comedy of Power: Huppert Shines in Whistleblower Expose from Salomé
Making a rare appearance in a ‘based on a true story’ film, Isabelle Huppert elevates...
Monster | Review
The Children’s Hour: Kore-eda Crafts a Melodramatic Puzzle
Returning to his native Japan after venturing out to France and South Korea with his last two...
Fallen Leaves | Review
All the Leaves Are Brown: Kaurismaki’s Song for the Lonely
Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismäki adds a fourth chapter to his thematic Proletariat Trilogy with...
Four Daughters (Les filles d’Olfa) | Review
Leave Them to Heaven: Ben Hania Experiments with Form in Anguishing Roleplay
For her sixth feature, Four Daughters, Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania takes a...
Anatomy of a Fall | Review
Witness for the Prosecution: Triet Beguiles with Knotty Crime Procedural
Justine Triet reunites with several of her Sibyl (2019) collaborators on her best film to...
The Royal Hotel | Review
Kitty Green Takes her 'Assistant’ To The Outback in Sunburn Sizzler
After exploring the ways in which workplace rape culture enables predators like Harvey Weinstein...
More Than Ever (Plus que jamais) | Review
When the Body Speaks: Krieps & Ulliel Fight for the Right Balance in Atef’s Final Voyage Drama
A too young to die portrait that sees...
Saturn Bowling | Review
Nightmare (Bowling) Alley: Mazuy Shocks with Disturbing Thriller
Every once in a while, a film comes along which conceptualizes brutality so shocking and vile it...
Robe of Gems | Review
Trojan Women: Lopez Crafts Collage of Complicity in Stellar Debut
For her directorial debut Robe of Gems (Manto de gemas), Natalia López Gallardo resists expectations...
En attendant la nuit (For Night Will Come) | 2023 Venice Film Festival Review
I Was a Teenage Vampire: Rouzet Insists the Family That Slays Together Stays Together
For her narrative feature debut, En attendant la nuit (For Night...
El Conde | Review
Death Becomes Him: Larrain Resurrects a Dictator in Bizarre Black Comedy
For his most subversive film to date (and likely the most beautiful and perverse...
Shosana | 2023 Toronto Intl. Film Festival Review
Winterbottom Cranks Yet Out Another One, This Time A Forgettable Thriller With No Bite
Michael Winterbottom never stops. For over three decades, the filmmaker has...
Without Air | 2023 Toronto Intl. Film Festival Review
A Teacher Fights For Her Job In Katalin Moldovai’s Simmering Indictment of Hungary’s Culture Wars
Agnieszka Holland’s largely forgotten (and quite awful) 1995 biopic Total...
