Bradley Warren

The collaborative energy between the two makes for an endlessly charming documentary, as “Faces Places” manages to look forwards and backwards with touching insight.

24 Frames snaps still-life photography out of its stasis, giving its images a brief history and miniature stories, even if it’s just the movement of cows in and out of a shot.

All in, the film is an unprecedented misfire for Denis.

It’s perhaps not a huge step-up to those already well-versed in recent Korean action cinema, but sturdy direction by helmer Jung Byung-gil, restrained hat-tips to genre films past and the well-paired male leads keep The Merciless from feeling like the summation of more famous films.

If Hong is often a filmmaker who can be accused of making the same movie over and over again, this latent muse brings a veritable freshness to his output by offering an emotional gravity that hadn’t significantly figured into his creative sphere.

One Week And A Day is at times a genuinely funny diversion amongst the Critic’s Week selection. However, a sentimental streak and a series of precocious narrative turns diminish the impact of the film.

Bragança’s ambitions exceed his reach, and Don’t Swallow My Heart fails to reconcile its various story strands, conflicting tones and genre aspirations.

If the film’s climax comes off as thematically clear — an outgrowth of the tension heretofore developed — it otherwise leaves an aftertaste of slightness.

Yourself and Yours lacks the narrative intricacy of the South Korean filmmaker’s most celebrated work but nonetheless serves as a charming introductory point for unfamiliar audiences.

An above average, carnage-driven Korean crime drama.

Underneath the dark humor and holistic mise en scène, there remains the nagging suspicion that what is onscreen is — in spite of the film’s best intentions — another patriarchal interpretation of Lady Macbeth.

While often hamstrung by genre conventions, particularly in the picture’s first half, Tom of Finland is a passable entry into the LGBT film canon and largely successful in selling the subcultural relevance of the eponymous artist’s beefcake drawings.

It’s an endlessly entertaining, challenging investigation of history that confirms Ruizpalacios’ status as the next big thing in Mexican cinema.

For the most part, Kahn’s latest effort is a tenderly observed portrait of the transformative power of religion, even if it occasionally fails to convince.

The Villainess confounds its audience on two levels: firstly, how the filmmakers pulled off the elaborate set pieces and secondly, leaving them to wonder what the hell is going on in the plot.

For all the artists that populate Hong’s cinematic universe, the director has yet to foreground the creative psyche in as thought-provoking of a manner as he does in Grass.