Boyd van Hoeij

Finally less a two-stories-for-the-price-of-one situation than essentially two films of about an hour each, this is nonetheless a visually impressive Hollywood calling card for Jimenez, who almost manages to overcome the material’s structural weaknesses with impressive directorial verve.

Much of the feature’s quietly accumulated emotional power derives from the fact that viewers have to connect some of the dots themselves. Indeed, just like in the subject’s own work, the imagination of the audience is as important an ingredient for the final result as what is actually written or suggested.

[An] evocative and atmospheric feature.

The 31-year-old Chemla (Camille Rewinds) is a revelation in the title role and utterly mesmerizing and credible whether she’s playing Jeanne at 20 or at 47.

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 strength of Asaph Polonsky’s debut feature, One Week and a Day (Shavua Ve Yom), is that it’s actually a bittersweet comedy-drama in which the pain is as real as the frequent chuckles.

A scrappy but at times uproarious Romanian comedy.

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.

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.

There is no denying the cumulative power of the material, in large part due the protagonists’ endless reservoirs of humanity, dignity and selflessness in the face of one of the world’s worst biggest current and most incomprehensible tragedies. Light on background and contextual facts, Last Men in Aleppo speaks very loudly from the heart.

By cataloging every spoon of food not eaten, every sip of water not swallowed and every sigh and every groan uttered, the myth becomes a man and the inherent paradox of being a divine ruler is revealed.

It feels like a sermon delivered by an extremely cine-literate preacher.

While Afineevsky generally manages to pack in a lot of detail, analysis, nuance and humanism, this is largely absent in the last chapter, which feels like it was rushed together at the last minute and didn’t receive the same amount of time, care and thought as the film’s previous chapters

One of Apprentice’s strongest selling points is how, in a very compact yet pleasingly dense way, it takes viewers into both the world of the executioners and the executed criminals’ family members who remain behind, two often almost ignored categories in films touching on capital punishment.

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 high-carat cast...tears into the juicy material with relish for the most part, but by trying to keep the prolonged sit-down affair from becoming excessively stagey, Moverman adds too many distracting flashbacks to maintain the original’s hard-hitting and well-aimed gut punch.

There is not a lot of risk-taking involved in the visual storytelling or in trying to find a cinematic equivalent of the novel’s style, making In Dubious Battle a rather classical period piece for the most part, though one with at least one very solid performance at its center.

Noxon, who also wrote the screenplay, manages to explore dark and complex issues while frequently leavening them with unexpected moments of humor.

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

Rosefeldt and a very game Blanchett spring one surprising creation on the viewer after the other. But what it all adds up to is of course up for debate.

The chemistry between the men is palpable, but what's more important, they convey their characters' complex emotions, expectations and thoughts without necessarily opening their mouths.

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.

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.

Handsomely packaged, the film unfortunately is also too well-behaved and lacking in psychological depth to really set itself apart from countless other WWII dramas.

The constant combination of highbrow and lowbrow elements is undeniably French but also very effective.

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.

Though clearly not a proposition for either devout Christians or audiences for whom the multiplex is a temple, this is the kind of take-no-prisoners art house fare that advances and deepens the understanding of a singular director’s oeuvre as a whole.