Leslie Camhi

An inspired homage to his father's work, and a bracing, bittersweet testament of filial love mixed with pain and compassion.

Fast-paced feminist thriller and witty black comedy.

Beyond its rare visions of remote vistas, Camel's great charm lies in its seeming simplicity. The camera records the events of the day -- from a little girl's tears to an afternoon sandstorm -- with a childlike clarity and curiosity.

Appears strangely dated, and its unspecified location seems existentially hokey.

"A very odd thriller" is how Italian director Marco Bellocchio describes My Mother's Smile, his uncannily beautiful and deeply humanist exploration of the nightmares that resurface from a Roman atheist's Catholic childhood.

The real star of this film is the crowded, neon-lit byways of the city itself.

Van Looy has created a fast-paced and stylish thriller. Declair's Ledda, marvelously suave and vulnerable, provides most of the pathos.

Norway's hallucinatory, edge-of-the-world beauty imbues the story with a woozy, alcoholic haze and a sense of the marginal spaces into which the messiest aspects of private life are shoved.

If you can suspend your disbelief regarding Nello's naïveté, this film offers some quiet pleasures.

A life so tragically and quickly extinguished presents maudlin temptations, but director Marc Rothemund ably resists them. His gripping, moving film focuses on a breathtakingly brief five-day period.

It's rare that a documentary conveys an artist's worldview so compellingly, but then Glennie is no ordinary musician.

Politics hover at the edges of even the most affectionate encounters among Danae, her parents, and the Obeidallah family. Amos Elon's negativity regarding the future of the Jewish state mars the film, yet Another Road Home moves beyond dark predictions.

Hardcore Kiarostami devotees may miss the master's harsher clarity, but Hatami, best known for her starring role in Dariush Mehrjui's "Leila," makes her character's inner transformation both subtle and palpable.

The fierce rigor of María Galiana's performance keeps this film from ever falling into sentimentality.

"No poetry after Auschwitz," Theodor Adorno proclaimed. One sometimes wishes he'd added, "And no big-name cinema either."

By setting this intimate conflict against a wider social drama, Daldry makes his portrait of a dancer all the more compelling.

If the film's redemptive ending is a fairy tale, it's one we willingly embrace.

Himalaya lacks such lightness, humor, and grace, offering instead the surface beauty of an ancient and inviolate culture.

At times the film's Buddhist lessons feel a bit forced, but the naturalistic performances Davaa has coaxed from a real-life Mongolian family, and her intimate understanding of their culture and values, give this sensitive portrayal its heft.

The film's occasional dips into sentimental cuteness and its too-pat ending can't cancel the gap that yawns ever wider between rural and urban society.

Noteworthy for its rich characterizations and startling plot twists, including a delightful surprise ending that is both a sexual double entendre and a matriarchal triumph.

Infusing Rendell's intrigue with warmth and humor, Miller makes the film's sometimes mechanical and giddy narrative into something grander -- a meditation on maternity as a form of inspired madness.

Something lured Paul Cox down memory lane, but he should have stayed at home.

Scenes from a marriage unfolding at the limits of love and personality.

Relies on the hefty talents of its two leading ladies.

Pays off in laugh-out-loud lines, adorably ditsy but heartfelt performances, and sparkling, bittersweet dialogue that cuts to the chase of the modern girl's dilemma.

Bening's comic gifts make the most of Ronald Harwood's witty screenplay, though she falls flat in her character's rare moments of sincerity.

A remarkably vivid portrait of a teeming third-world metropolis