Boyd van Hoeij

This is a bittersweet comedy-drama that manages to be hilarious in one scene and extremely touching in the next.

For all its possible precedents, it’s still relatively uncommon to see a film in which actual sex acts are an integral part of the storytelling. Placed right up front like a kind of litmus test for the audience, the sex scenes here are explicit but also unambiguously non-salacious or intended to arouse.

Though more mainstream-oriented audiences will not be on board with Ahn’s brand of subtlety, for those willing to fully invest themselves, Spa Night offers a carefully considered story about identity or rather identities.

The Divine Order (Die Goettliche Ordnung) is an entertaining, if largely predictable, story of an individual swept up in the tide of history.

It’s a sobering, collage-like overview of a problem that sadly hasn’t much changed since Michael Moore’s angrier and more provocative (if perhaps less rigorously journalistic) feature came out.

Ingrid’s complex and flawed psyche finally does come into view in the home stretch but it feels like Vogt’s kept his narrative cards too close to his chest for too long. It’s a shame, especially because Petersen (Troubled Water) is terrific in a very tricky role.

There is no denying the visceral power of Wang’s insistence on looking encroaching death, as it were, in the eye and the filmmaker exercises appropriate restraint when the final moment does come.

Though only an adequate singer, Medhaffer practically explodes with energy when she’s behind the microphone, making for a very charismatic performer.

There’s an element of light comedy — rather than the more familiar irony — that feels fresh and invigorating, even if Garrel doesn’t quite stick the landing.

This kind of film wouldn’t stand a chance if the actors weren’t believable but Garcia (who starred in El Amparo, which Cordova edited) and non-professional Reyes are both understated but utterly authentic.

A mixture of raw, first-hand footage, shot by protesters themselves, and more self-possessed interviewees ensures that the chaos and sometimes lethal risks of protesting come across as strongly as the pressing sociopolitical reasons behind them and the effects the events have had on the participants.

Greenaway’s habitual approach is perfect for this material, constantly externalizing the director’s ideas about Eisenstein’s life and work and the way the two are connected in a way that speaks directly -- often quite literally -- to the audience.

There are no false notes in the ensemble but Francella, with dyed grey eyebrows, and Lanzini, saddled with black sideburns the size of dead mice, are clearly best in show. And the film finally gives audiences the long-awaited confrontation between the two in a strong sequence toward the end.

A sterling cast makes up for screenplay weaknesses.

The screenplay...is very good in its many observational scenes, which here are more straightforward and less laced with irony and dark humor than in Women.

It helps immeasurably that Gainsbourg, as an actress, is as intense as her presence feels evanescent, always seemingly onto the next moment already, leaving everyone in her wake.

Though in several ways related to the previous Heimat films, this beautifully shot black-and-white feature is accessible even for those unfamiliar with Reitz’s previous work.

A quite absorbing but never riveting or revelatory overview of Armstrong’s career and testy personality.

Unlike the films he’s co-written for Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, Rust and Bone…), which often rely on Audiard’s stunning capacity to foreground grand emotional sweeps, this is a much more constructed narrative that could only be described as a writer’s film, though one with several pleasant — if shocking is your idea of pleasant, that is — surprises up its sleeve.

Audley (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints), in practically every frame of the film, has to carry this feather-light narrative on his shoulders and does so with ease.

Grandinetti, with a bushy 1970s mustache, has the thankless job of carrying a film in which he plays a morally compromised character, which doesn’t directly warm him to the audience. But he does so with his trademark intelligence and grace, turning Claudio into a generally decent man who makes a few very bad choices.

By concentrating too much on the physical hammer’s adventures in the closing reels, Mielants loses sight of the might of the hammer as a metaphor.

The film’s combination of psychological drama -- cue the childhood trauma -- with blood-splattered limb-cutting, talking heads in the fridge and talking pets on the couch is a risky one that finally works because Perry and Satrapi find the right tonal mixture for the material.

De Pencier’s cinematography has a good eye for the beauty and horror of man-made or -altered landscapes, and it is hard to deny that the film benefits from being seen on as large a screen as possible, as impressive crane or drone shots fill the screen. But like with Burtynsky’s photographs, it is also hard to deny that the beauty of these shots stands in stark contrast to their purported message.

The directors have brought onboard the entire original cast. This makes their job much easier, as countless performances have perfected the timing and tone of each single line.

Even though one could argue that Bruni Tedeschi was typecast here, she takes the role and runs with it, beautifully grading the different nuances of her headstrong character, whose outward exuberance clearly hides a lot of hurt and a fear of loneliness.

The film’s ambition and dexterity is somewhat of a mixed blessing, with, for example, character motivations given short shrift in the sprint to the finish line.