Deborah Young

Abu-Assad and his cinematographer Ehab Assal have every shot under control and rarely need to go overboard to convey a strong emotion.

Though it begs for a little lightening up, a moment of irony, a wink at the audience, this dead-serious fairy tale about a mysterious young woman (and a phantom automaton straight out of Hugo) is worth watching for Geoffrey Rush’s sensitive, never pandering performance.

In this fast-moving, densely plotted black dramedy, a faux scandal raised by an ambitious web TV editor comes close to destroying a number of lives, offering a masterful panorama on urban, middle class China.

Stephen Frears is in full possession of his filmmaking talent in Philomena, one of his most pulled-together dramas in years.

The central performances by Emile Hirsch and Stephen Dorff hold the film together with the intensity of their brotherly affection and support.

It would be hard to find two more contrasting actresses than Otto and Pires, but Barreto plays off their differences in culture and personality.

This is far from a dull, academic work and the fast-paced talk is matched by swiftly changing scenes full of vibrant visuals. Life bubbles out of each frame in a grungy, foul-smelling rush.

Van Dormael's intriguing script is more than matched in his flamboyant direction of this 2-hour-plus tale, heroically edited by Matyas Veress and Susan Shipton into a fluid, generally understandable narrative.

A film that lingers in the memory in spite of being rather irritating to watch.

At times fascinating, at times not, its in-depth look at the administration, campus, students and faculty offers an insider's view into the way American academia functions.

Wong is such a fine, subtle actor that it comes as a surprise to find him a superb martial artist as well, as he convincingly demonstrates the superiority of Ip Man’s technique over competing schools.

Gianfranco Rosi (Below Sea Level, El Sicario: Room 164) brings humor and sensitivity to his filming of the strange denizens who live and work around the Grande Raccordo Anulare, Rome’s huge ring road.

It doesn’t really add up to much, beyond a timely reminder that it would be better for everyone to stop uploading and downloading and just unplug and be human.

More than a thriller, this adaptation of Jose Saramago’s novel The Double is an absurdist-existential mood piece – and a very dark mood it is.

Intense and engaging performances from Jessica Chastain and James McAvoy bring the well-written screenplay to life.

While the exact secret to the film’s high-grossing recipe remains a bit of a mystery, it probably has to do with the good-humored chemistry between the unlikely partners, pushing the limits of censorship in the sexual-innuendo department, and a well-written off-the-wall script that makes audiences laugh out loud.

A very honest film from a great Japanese artist.

Only the bravura of the cast, first and foremost Park and Lee (both veterans of Unbowed), generates sufficient interest to see the film through to its surprising conclusion, recounted in a respectful coda many years later.

In Drug War, Hong Kong genre master Johnnie To gives a superlative lesson on how to give an updated, thoroughly engrossing twist to the classic cops-and-robbers chase.

Director Vincent Sandoval (Senorita) seems most interested in is using the convent as a metaphor for Filipino society in the Seventies, which buried its head in the sand while president Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law and police tortured and murdered opposition protestors.

Images and metaphors whimsicially combine in a fine, fast-flowing documentary introducing the Baha'i faith.

Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi pursues his exploration of guilt, choice and responsibility in a superbly written, directed and acted drama that commands attention every step of the way.

Though Sorrentino’s vision of moral chaos and disorder, spiritual and emotional emptiness at this moment in time is even darker than Fellini’s...he describes it all in a pleasingly creative way that pulls audiences in through humor and excess.

The whole project is saved largely thanks to the subtext of ethnic discrimination that runs through the film, and two riveting central performances, which overcome a wobbly start to find emotional balance by the final reel.

A lovely film that makes little emotional connection.

Von Trotta seems to borrow some of her subject’s haughty disdain for compromise in a serviceable script that does the job of telling us who Hannah Arendt was like a good pair of solid, gray walking shoes; there’s nothing fancy or modern to distract from the portrait of one of the most important thinkers of the century.

Kim Ki-duk is back in fighting form in Pieta, an intense and, for the first hour, sickeningly violent film that unexpectedly segues into a moving psychological study.

Dan Algrant’s lyrical recreation of a father-son relationship seen over time, through memory and music, has a sense of urgent originality that works even apart from its great Tim Buckley score.

Magnificent in its simplicity and its relentless honesty about old age, illness and dying, Michael Haneke's Amour is a deliberately torturous watch.

Treads a delicate line between documentary and fiction to reconstruct the kidnapping and murder of director Albertina Carri's parents during the military dictatorship.

An enjoyable absurdist comedy.

10 dazzling and perceptive snapshots of women with which femmes everywhere can identify.

The confused script makes this a tough film for audiences to dig into.

As a tyro auteur, Tanovich has a heavy-handed way of delineating characters and situations that makes this well-meaning film awfully familiar at times.

An unforgettable journey through hell under the earth, where Satan is worshipped as king. Straight-as-an-arrow filmmaking raises this docu above the crowd.

Brings peaks of violence and suspense to the vivid story of a young East European prostitute-turned-cleaning lady intent on carrying out a mysterious mission in Italy.

Timely and thought-provoking, if a bit rambling.

Maoz doesn't seem to worry about losing some puzzled viewers along the way with comprehension issues. For those who reach the end, the story makes perfect sense.

A self-contained master class on cinema.

Unshaven and twinkling-eyed, Sharif is professionally light and entertaining in the title role.

The special effects are quality fun, the humor only a little Japanese, and the story boasts the offbeat genre twists Miike lovers clamber for.

An inspired mix of realism, humor and metaphor.

A riveting Argentine thriller spiked with witty dialogue and poignant love stories.

Like characters out of some Carnival hell, a macho butcher and his born-again wife, a forlorn barmaid, a sinister sadist and the gay manager of a flophouse called the Hotel Texas run in and out of each other's lives in a film as sloppy, sluttish, scruffy and vital as they are.

Charmingly setting aside glamour for a turn at pure acting, Nicole Kidman zings up the already zingy script of Birthday Girl.

A flashback to the playfully tender East Euro cinema of yore with a forceful if predictable punch in the closing reel, Rajko Grlic's Border Post marks a virile comeback for the Croatian veteran after his weak-kneed "Josephine."

Result is a weird hodgepodge that has the audience doing mental somersaults in an attempt to keep up with this highly original festival head-scratcher.

Intensely present and real even in this sordid role, Ramazzotti shows she is growing into one of Italy's most versatile actresses, particularly in difficult proletarian roles like the one here. She is literally the best thing in this depressing, often shallow film.

The choice to have Valentin narrate the tale and make philosophical observations beyond his years becomes irritating at times; ditto the cartoon humor.

Salma Hayek makes the character an icon of female independence, courage and nonconformity, forecasting special appeal for women viewers.

A delightfully unpredictable sleeper that proves new Argentine cinema really exists, Suddenly, by 26-year-old Diego Lerman, starts scary, moves through deadpan comic and comes out with a whimsical tenderness for its characters.

Hits its stride from the opening scenes and continues hilariously for a while, before declining into more of same. Its undeniable appeal lies in shocking frankness shackled to irony, a combo that should attract indie lovers with psychoanalytic leanings and droll senses of humor.

Tensely action-packed and muscularly directed by Kathryn Bigelow, this tale of an elite U.S. army bomb disposal unit in Baghdad is a familiar story in new clothes, targeted at the young male demographic.

The attention given to constructing each shot makes for a hypnotic visual experience, while lack of a progressive narrative telescopes film's running time into infinity.

It is all the more heart-wrenching for being realistic. Its portrait of child labor brooks no sentimentality and no cliches.

Emir Kusturica's epic black comedy about Yugoslavia from 1941 to 1992 is a three-hour steamroller circus that leaves the viewer dazed and exhausted, but mightily impressed.

Despite its grim subject, the powerful storytelling projects the strongly affirmative message that it's a miracle to be alive and bear witness to those who did not survive. This memorable film, one of Techine's best, is in no way limited to gay viewers.

A bizarre combo of upscale French erotica studded with good-humored kinky sex scenes.

Though it risks political incorrectness every step of the way, film is more a pleasant laugher than a sharp-edged satire.

Though its subject has curiosity value, its critical view of religious institutions is compromised by an ending that evidently was necessary for the film to be made and released at all.

It's hard to walk away unaffected from this heartfelt, well-researched, feature-length documentary.

A beautiful example of how a memorable film can be made on a shoestring.

Documentary has the fascination of watching an African "Judge Judy" with a more important case load. It also offers the satisfaction of seeing the law being used to change patterns of social injustice.

Despite a few potholes of ennui along the way, pic has enough entertainment value to cross borders and titillate auds with its plentiful nudity and uninhibited sexual mores.

Like flipping through the pages of a pulpy best-seller, watching Loving Pablo has its moments of guilty pleasure but leaves an empty feeling when you reach the end.

A dignified second film for Caetano.

Gentle, touching tale.

Menacing atmosphere created by Dutch helmer Paula van der Oest ("Zus & Zo") does not make up for the weak script's multiple improbabilities, flat dialogue or the discomfort of watching children, the handicapped and even animals being abused onscreen.

Lasse Hallstrom's breezy, fast-paced, somewhat loose-ended account of how he (Irving) did it offers a surprisingly layered vehicle for a maniacally conniving Richard Gere, backed up by a superb Alfred Molina as his accomplice.

A fairly successful attempt at satire, though given the subject, there's a lot of darkness under the carpet.

Apart from its historical interest, this tragic tale of religious extremism and misogyny is a very good film able to catch audiences up emotionally.

Dyrholm is at her multifaceted best here in the glammed-down, uglified role of an older rock ‘n' roll star on the skids.

Film has major assets in Walter Carvalho's stunning landscapes and livewire young lead Hermila Guedes, but overall, it's too uninvolving.

Has a terrible fascination that glues viewers to the screen. At the same time, audience patience is tested.

A low-structure, high-involvement Brazilian free-for-all destined to take its place among hellish prison films, Carandiru plants a fist in the viewer's stomach.

Though not every moment is fascinating to watch, most moments are, and adult audiences should find its frank presentation of the diversity of intimacy thought-provoking and possibly therapeutic.

Though convincingly set in the lower depths of Lima, the story embodies a universal truth about the experience of former soldiers in many times and places.

Radha Mitchell stirs memories of complex Allen heroines from Annie Hall on down, even if the action is dispersed via a larger ensemble cast which he currently favors.

Takes the refined work of Iranian helmer Abbas Kiarostami up another notch to ever more metaphoric ground.

As it explores the limits of human endurance, the pic should suck even landlubbers into a whirlpool of gripping adventure, overblown ambitions and sheer human folly.

This study in weathering adversity and adjusting to what life hands you makes some worthy points about human and institutional callousness.

The buoyant little comedy 12:08 East of Bucharest puts its finger on the problem in the best tradition of East European humor, savvy but concrete, gentle but sharp as a knife.

The story is narrated, off and on, by tag-along Wilson, but Garcia Bernal is in full control of the film.

After a tedious start building up the boys' lives and friendship, feature bow by Elmar Fischer becomes deeply engrossing in its second half, as the viewer learns of the hero's anguish and doubts.

[A] forceful presentation of an ever-timely topic.

Those on both sides of the great Cuba divide should find food for thought in these sober, realistic reflections.

Elusive and elliptical as it is, this is one of the most accessible films in Oliveira's recent repetoire.

Holding the film together are simple but strong B&W visuals of offbeat types sitting around a table smoking and drinking java while they talk.

Film's pared-down look has a stylish simplicity.

Shot like the grunge version of a '50s noir thriller from France (or Soviet Georgia), the black-and-white 13 (Tzameti) turns into a shocker of Tarantino proportions in protracted sequences of explosive violence that leave viewers quaking.

Radiates a warm humanity and uplifts the spirit. Subtle rather than sentimental, it lacks easy tears though attentive viewers will find it lacerating enough.

Pic's rediscovery in the capitalist U.S., and its reappraisal as a masterpiece of visual pyrotechnics, gives Brazilian documaker Vicente Ferraz's tale an upbeat final twist -- after some mid-film doldrums.

The film has a winning combo of excitement and topicality.

Takes the viewer on a mysterious and sporadically fascinating trip into the darkness of the human heart and Thai legend.

Though the storyline is dirt simple and not particularly meaningful or involving, the action in this character-driven film is scintillatingly sexy.

The tense triangle among the girl and her two moms unfolds against an interesting backdrop: a stark setting in rural Sardinia, where tall cliffs and dirt roads criss-cross a shrub-infested desert. Its general wildness is underlined in the first scene at a local bronco-busting rodeo.

Though it’s a rare Italian film told from a female p.o.v., “Melissa P.” is pseudo-feminist at best.

Not a cheerful watch: It's a shocking portrayal of rampant racism.