Deborah Young

Mostly one wishes for a more concise edit that would pull this impressive avalanche of memories and faded photos together a lot sooner.

Both touching and universally understandable, the theme is how an untimely death destroys the fragile fabric that binds a family together.

Feeling more spontaneous and improvised than ever, this tale of chance encounters at a big film festival is easy on the eye and strewn with humorous gems, as it wryly reflects on the festival business and its denizens.

Director Naomi Kawase’s adaptation of Durian Sukegawa’s novel An aims so low that it makes good on its modest ambitions.

Both intensely exciting for its cinematic inventions and terribly uninvolving on emotional and dramatic levels.

One couldn’t wish for a more painstakingly researched or beautifully rendered account of the infamous Dreyfus affair than Roman Polanski’s An Officer and a Spy (J’Accuse).... Yet the result is oddly lacking in heart and soul, almost as though a mask of military discipline held it in check.

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

Surprising, disconcerting and droll, this Italo-Swiss co-prod packs the grotesquerie of an Ulrich Seidl film minus the sex, plus vivid acting. Its weakest link is on the narrative level.

While the stories the film tells are lively and never uninteresting, they fail to ignite an emotional explosion. The reach is also too broad for a film.

Gripping drama.

Once Pacino is surrounded by other characters, the comedy comes thick and fast and the material begins to come together in an absurd sort of way.

In his second outing as a director, top thesp Sergio Castellitto (also playing the surgeon) takes the viewer on an emotion-filled ride and brings a violently masculine perspective to the story. However, it is Penelope Cruz who gives the film's knockout performance.

It’s a remarkable film experience in several ways.

Spread over hours of poetic ramblings, the message loses most of its urgency.

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.

David Lynch, The Art Life will entrance the director’s fans and, who knows, inspire budding, out-of-the-box creators in an artistic coming-of-age tale, told in his own words and deliberate tones.

In the end, there is a method in all this madness, suggested by Dafoe’s calm face and reassuring voice as Clint confronts his most emotionally charged memories with courage and curiosity.

The finale is telegraphed far in advance, yet when it comes the drama is so down-played it doesn’t register in its full horror.

The characters are irritating, the look is cheap and the plot is reheated from other movies, but it has to be admitted that Dachra delivers its unsavory thrills.

Night in Paradise contains a lot of good plotting, several amusing characters and a decent array of exciting action scenes and bloodshed. But it is indulgently long.

Ricky Tognazzi's La Scorta topped the Italian box office charts for weeks, thanks to its skill in capturing the country's current political climate in an entertaining action film format. (Review of Original Release)

Though it’s a series that has seen its day, this swan song should attract genre die-hards with its elegant visuals and some humorously imaginative murders which are the director’s trademark.

The overwritten script has so many subplots it’s hard to keep the stories straight, especially when the ending throws a truly unexpected twist. But little matter; the exceptional tech work gives the film plenty of energy and excitement.

Complexly plotted, elegantly shot and orchestrated, this is the kind of long-winded, intermittently involving festival package that will earn the director of Tokyo Sonata more critical appreciation but will struggle to find a theatrical audience. For a film that requires nearly five hours of viewing investment, it feels terribly stingy on the emotional payoff.

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.

Timely and thought-provoking, if a bit rambling.

A film whose very surreal, disturbing first hour dissolves in disappointing B-movie nonsense at the end. Still it’s hard to remember a film about S&M as funny as this one, or one as beautifully and weirdly imagined.

Although all the main characters and plot points survive the transition intact, they don’t carry the same weight. Him and Her have an undeniable literary, collegiate feeling, like reading a long novel and getting to know the characters inside out. Them steps on the accelerator in a sort of Cliffs Notes version.