David Jenkins

What’s surprising about the film is how hopeful it is, zeroing in on human creativity and resilience during the worst of times rather than wallowing in abject misery.

With the verve of a master classical storyteller, Citarella stages the unfolding of this eccentric mystery while processing the dizzying flow of information with a grace and precision that will have you hanging on every frame.

It’s compulsive and completely absorbing, and Laura’s dedication to this ad hoc investigation which may have no conclusion is echoed in a performance that empathetically redefines tired cinematic notions of obsessive behaviour.

One thing that lifts this above the type of hospital-based docu-drama that are ten-a-penny on the small screen is that Paravel and Castaing-Taylor locate a uniquely cinematic quality to the footage.

Drive My Car is endlessly fascinating and rich, the type of film which you could spend hours analysing and come no closer to feeling as if you’ve landed on its true intent.

It’s a beautifully written and executed work, one of Panahi’s most formally straightforward yet powerful, gripping and generous.

With Saint Omer, Diop not only refreshes and expands upon the tired conventions of the courtroom drama, but she really drills down into the fundamental gaps in our understanding of human nature and the tantalising but illusive ‘why?’ of it all.

It’s a love story for our time and for all time.

It’s an amazing, hypermodern concept for a film, one which operates as a brutal critique of the class system, while also acting as a metaphor for geopolitical relationships and the moral and ethical lapses we sometimes overlook in the name of making rent.

Licorice Pizza is a slow-release product, something that creeps up on you, inveigles its way into your conscience. It’s silky-smooth filmmaking perfection, bolstered by a full hand of remarkably charismatic star supporting turns.

It’s not a faultless film, but it’s one that sits within the higher echelons of the oft-tawdry biopic form, and also reveals hidden depths to the Nolan project and, excitingly, suggests that we should brace ourselves for anything the next time around.

This is on first impression perhaps a very good, uneven film rather than an unequivocally great one.

A few behind-the-scenes moments during weekends and holidays depict a more personal side to the otherwise-enigmatic Bachmann, but the picture that Speth paints of him is as someone who is casually fixated with this occupation – that the process of teaching is seeped into his very being and consumes his thoughts.

A fiery, confrontational missive from one of the finest dramatic writers in the business.

It’s perhaps one or two increments too obscure, too puzzling and too unwilling to give anything away that it seems to end mid-sentence, without any traditional closure. Yet it’s still a bold work that puts great faith in its cast to play along with this game of chilling insouciance.

Celiloglu’s carefully calibrated performance, combined with a screenplay which never descents to scurrilous signposting, makes Samet a person of endless literary intrigue – a monster and a martyr trapped inside the same body.

Every shot, every narrative beat, every decision exudes not merely confidence, but the touch of a master.

The film is ambling, gentle and doesn’t strain too hard to force a point, but allows you to appreciate the multifarious nature of life in a city where the spectre of destruction lurks ominously in the clouds.

Director Blitz Bazawule does well to draw out multifaceted performances from his cast, particularly Barrino and Brooks, and with them the big emotional beats all manage to land well enough. Yet the musical flights of fancy feel creatively bound by the stage adaptation and lack a certain eccentric pizazz.

It’s confident, classical filmmaking, yet despite its many formal and thematic pleasures, doesn’t offer a whole lot that’s new.

It’s a wonderful film with not an ounce of fat on the bone, and Kaurismäki still manages to thread the needle between a style of ironic detachment and emotions that are big, bold and instantly affecting.

This is not a politically didactic film, nor a lapel-shaking polemic, but a film whose obligation towards fine dramatic authenticity succeeds in convincing that this is the correct way of thinking, and any alternatives are incorrect.

The direction by Davies Jr is top-notch, not just in how he is able to capture the fine nuances of the actors on camera, but also in how they are immersed in the chaotic mêlée of Lagos at this powder-keg moment.

The film offers no explicit commentary or context, but instead allows the images to speak for themselves.

The film avoids polemic and instead presents itself as informed and inquisitive blueprint for the ways in which we discuss anti-colonialist action.

It’s a rare, backwards looking misfire for this director who has always been at the vanguard of cinematic innovation. The care and attention that has gone into the making of this film is undeniable, though at times it feels misplaced and others overwrought.

Fiume o morte! explores the dangerous, empowering nature of fascism, and how certain forms of aggression would seem fair game under a régime that rules by such inhumane edict.

One thing to emphasise is that this is a very funny film, yet the humour doesn’t ever come from jokes or contrived set-ups. It’s more a sense of looming realisation that this caper – explained and justified over a single pint in a pub – is even more flawed that we ever might have imagined.