Boyd van Hoeij

The real star of the show here is the strikingly gorgeous, often almost bi-chrome visual universe, inspired by the tai chi diagram — more commonly known in the West as yin-and-yang symbol — and traditional ink-brush painting, with its distinct combination of rich blacks and fluid shades of gray.

A gossamer debut feature that compensates for its lo-fi look with glimpses of profound humanism.

Lifshitz never demonizes those that don’t understand or oppose Sasha’s desire to be who she really is and they remain almost entirely offscreen. Instead, the director chronicles, with immense warmth and generosity, the toll this outside opposition takes on Sasha and her loved ones and how much love, care and attention is needed to compensate for the fact she’s not simply accepted like all her peers.

Just like a cubist painting, what happens in the film doesn’t necessarily resemble real life in a narrow documentary sense but instead gives the viewer something else: a chance to consider certain behavior from various sides and on a more abstract level.

Hong, who handled screenplay as well as directorial, editing and scoring duties, is in fine form here.

The film is much more about the way in which people perceive one another than about the way people really are.

Jodorowsky keeps circling back to the question of who he is and how poetry is inextricably linked with how he experiences the world.

The Salt of the Earth doesn’t reveal so much as gracefully confirm that the empathy and humanism that make Salgado’s photojournalistic work so special are also a part of the artist’s outlook on life.

German Concentration Camps Factual Survey is a time capsule as much as a direct historical document, showing not only what the Allied Forces found when they first arrived at the Nazi concentration camps but also how the British government of the time thought it was appropriate to communicate about the Nazi atrocities.

Part of the film is a realistic drama about two men in love with the same woman but because they are both involved in illegal activities, the negative tension between them gives rise to several jungle setpieces that are real nail-biters

Observant and wise about boys in puberty yet impish and carefree when necessary and never idealizing the cold and dreary countryside they travel through, Winter Flies is a lovely little film that’s as comfortable as an old sweater and almost as warm.

By contrasting what the investigators are trying to uncover with the youthful adventures of the children, Dumont seems to suggest that the world of adults, despite appearances, is so rotten that it can only be stomached and perhaps even saved by two things: laughter of the tragicomic kind and a child-like innocence that somehow needs to be maintained into adulthood.

My Golden Days more often privileges emotional truths over historical veracity. This helps not only to make the past dilemmas of the protagonists feel more immediate and real, but also suggests how, looking back, we see our lives as a succession of emotional experiences, not dry historical facts.

Beer and Rogowski are so good, and have such amazing chemistry, that it’s hard to look away or not root for them to be together.

The sound of the zipper on Diane’s handbag, for example, becomes extremely ominous in Mermoud’s capable hands, while two distinct musical themes, written by Christian Garcia and Gregoire Hetzel, respectively, further enhance the mood and help establish the film’s bona fides as a classy and classical psychological thriller.

Patterns emerge by virtue of repetition.

Initially somewhat wispy-feeling, this 72-minute feature transforms in its final reel from an ironic divertissement to a work of considerable feeling and intensity.

Strictly in terms of basic plot, Eastern Business isn’t exactly innovative. But what makes the film stand out is how perceptive it is about Moldova’s place in (Eastern) Europe and how it uses its characters’ behavior to illustrate points about human behavior that’s recognizable the world over.

Like in any good genre yarn, there are a lot of unexpected twists and turns as characters run into each other — often quite literally and sometimes even with their vehicles — in the desperate hope of getting their hands on the money.

A scrappy but at times uproarious Romanian comedy.

There is no denying that, initially, Transit’s story might feel excessively oblique. But as the film slowly puts its formalistic and thematic cards on the table, it becomes clear that its storytelling technique is really just a reflection of its core themes.

This challenging but refreshingly candid nonfiction feature is the debut of the talented Swedish-Danish filmmaking couple Frida and Lasse Barkfors, who have not only found a fascinating subject but who also manage to build a case against isolating sex offenders without resorting to such facile shortcuts as voiceovers or heavy editorializing.

As he did in Lilting, Khaou in Monsoon finely sketches the complex inner lives and identities of a small group of characters and plugs them into a narrative that unfolds gradually but precisely, so audiences have the time to consider the work's larger thematic concerns.

What we're looking at is, in essence, an artwork that looks at other art — a concept film about a conceptual art project. It suggests that a one-minute part can be the whole for one viewer or that, conversely, the whole is made up of an infinite amount of smaller parts that can each tell only a small part of the story.

The hushed closing reels are unusual in Noé’s oeuvre in that they generate straightforward empathy and emotion without falling back on gimmicks, trickery or shock tactics.

The film, also written by Blair, manages an impressive balancing act in term of its tricky, quicksilver tone, which constantly oscillates between foreboding, menacing, hilarity and absurdity without ever feeling incongruous.

Thankfully, Finley isn’t only adept at writing and directing good dialogue but he also understands how images and sounds can enhance his story.

Though the film’s two halves aren’t equally as strong, with the second half lacking some of the complexity and breathtaking sweep of part one, this is an impressive step up for Quillevere.