Deborah Young

All of these ingredients should come together in a mouth-watering finale, but such is not the case; in fact, the film becomes more obvious and less psychological as it goes on.

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.

Characters come and go quickly, leaving a feeling that there is too much compression of the multi-episode story.

Despite its careful control of tone and a raging central performance by Ciaran Hinds, which is actually sufficient reason to see the film, this story of a man who plunges into childhood memories in the aftermath of his wife’s death remains admirable but wingless.

There is a darkness in all these “average” characters, underlined by low-key acting and the film’s sinisterly calm, measured pace.

Viewers of this Venice competition title are likely to find the ideological confusion contagious and the romance pretty trite. But the camerawork and music choices are lively and may enable a younger gen to relate and discuss.

It's the kind of cartoonish film where, no matter what the odds and how many bullets are flying at our heroes, they never get seriously injured.

Pleasantly watchable.

Like an Iraq-war mirror image of "Life Is Beautiful," actor-director Roberto Benigni's The Tiger and the Snow re-runs the successful structure and comic persona of the 1998 Oscar-winning film in a trippy fantasia about a poet who follows his love to hell and, in this happier ending, back.

Has the comically grotesque appeal of a Fellini film and could reach out to auds in specialized release. It lacks the originality and invention to go much beyond that.

If the film works at all it is thanks to the exceptional craftsmanship of its camerawork, editing, and acting, under the direction of Asghar Farhadi.

All this is portrayed in such elementary terms it could be the libretto of a 19th century operetta, or maybe a children’s film, were it not so disturbing.

Graf has spent most of his long career as a director of TV series and movies, and much of the staging lacks great originality. But this is made up for, in part, by the striking way the story of Jakob and his friends is told mixing the narrative drama with now old-fashioned “modernist” tech devices borrowed from the past.

A lovely film that makes little emotional connection.

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.

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

If it wasn’t for the charming top-liners who can make literary dialogue sound sexy in their sleep, the war in Fred Schepisi’s Words and Pictures would have to be called off after the opening skirmish.

The overall feeling is a lot less special than their ground-breaking work that flew with birds and swam with deep-sea creatures.

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

A long, leisurely drama directed with self-assurance.

Though the message comes across loud and clear, the four tales suffer from being narratively uneven, making the film’s two-and-a-half-hour running time seem long indeed.

Argento fans lusting for a classy slasher movie of the "Suspiria"/"Opera" variety are headed for a disappointing rendezvous with an old-fashioned police thriller, upgraded by serious actors in the main roles.

The sarcasm of superstar director Feng Xiaogang reduces Chinese bureaucracy, the legal system and government inefficiency to ashes in I Am Not Madame Bovary, but risks doing the same for audiences in a caustic, overlong satire whose coy visual effects overpower the story and characters.

Audiences are likely to be split into love/hate camps over this disturbing film, which is subtle to a fault and features entire third-act scenes whose meaning is not exactly clear.

Though weak in the drama department, the story of a brother and sister who love each other but have different political ideas and personal agendas effectively captures the tension of the time.

The story-telling is a little too pat to deliver the surprise moments that reveal character or sweep audiences up emotionally. The film remains a creepy story with a lot of morbid fascination, set off by the captivating young Florencia Bado in her first screen role.

It’s not very clear if the director-actor-writer-producer has anything vitally important to add to his filmography in this narratively complex, generally downbeat work. What comes through most strongly is a striking sense of loss and disappointment in the character he plays, an aging man whose despair seems very personal and tinges the whole film (which is theoretically a Morettian comedy) with sadness and bitter farewells.