Nicholas Bell

Saleh’s script seems to be beating around the veritable bush for nearly two hours before it slams into violent gear, which effectively snaps the audience into a whiplash, but would have felt more effective had it arrived sooner. A tighter edit would greatly reduce the aimless, meandering quality, especially since multiple scenes regarding the film’s shoot also, by the nature of their falseness, feel flat.

Lifting directly from Camus’ prose in the final throes, Ozon’s take on The Stranger effectively administers the source’s intentions—and clearly, there is a point, even if Meursault himself would reject it.

Simple, sweet, and perhaps a bit too disarming, familiar stakes and an ambiguous resolution make DJ Ahmet feel more mundane than it should.

In many ways, Living the Land plays like the fictionalized version of moments in Wang Bing’s Youth trilogy, particularly in communal moments of intersecting realities. It’s a familiar human story, yet one which carves out its own fierceness as seasons change, life goes on, and new generations must contend with being unable to inherit the fruits of their parents’ toils.

While The Blue Trail ends on a tenuous note, it envisions a troubling, slippery slope of a future which doesn’t seem inherently unimaginable.

At a point in time, a film like Two Prosecutors would seem like an old fashioned recapitulation of a dark, disastrous period we’d safely moved away from. However, it’s difficult not to see crystal clear parallels, on an operational level at the least, with NKVD, an agency operating with complete autonomy, and something like the newly minted monstrosity DOGE in the US.

Guilt certainly becomes her, and the narrative, which consists mainly of a handful of one-on-one interactions, yields often funny, sometimes surprising results.

Destined for instant controversy and an eventual time capsule documenting Israel’s normalizing of barbarism, Lapid’s latest is an admonition of almost shocking import, an increasingly rare example of modern art speaking truth to power.

In the world of Franco, humankind always resorts to base brutality, and this is a hemorrhaging revenge film suggesting the cruelest crimes are those of the heart.

Rosi approaches obscured angles of Naples, going above and below, inside and out.

One’s familiarity with similar agonized portraits of motherhood may dictate how novel Nightborn might seem, though it’s lonely, traumatized Sara who makes one want to stay until the end credits.

If there’s any need to make another film about despicable, beautiful, filthy rich monsters, at least decide what, if anything, might be of interest to say. If families are rose bushes needing pruning, then so are scripts.

Hüller is quite exceptional as the disfigured human grimly determined to succeed, sacrificing pleasure and comfort for control.

What’s shocking is how rough hewn the characters and sentiments are in Yellow Letters considering Çatak’s laser sharp focus in The Teachers’ Lounge.

Perhaps a bit more mainstream than might be expected from the distinctive human miseries usually employed by du Welz, Maldoror is an enjoyably meaty recuperation of an infamous scandal.

Arguably, there’s nothing innately wrong with Young Mothers, other than it feeling like a return to safer socio-cultural predicaments which characterized the directors’ earlier output, which often involved children.

Ultimately, The Testament of Ann Lee feels like Willa Cather’s version of The Witch (2015).

Strange yet familiar, ending on a wistful note to the crooning of Anika, a favored artist of the director, the strange pain associated with not living up to the conditioned expectations of our prescribed roles is exactly what makes Father Mother Sister Brother feel poignant.

While it contains powerful imagery, Gornostai isn’t digging too deeply into the mechanics of the education system, more so showcasing the resilient evolution of a besieged population.

Chan-wook takes his time in unwinding his devious tale, a masterful neo-noir about following dangerous fantasies to their logical conclusion in job markets further compromised by a dependence on AI.

Certainly, Sorrentino does ask questions worth pondering. But the corresponding answers are often monosyllabic.

Djukić is profoundly interested in capturing the tormented process of women’s sexual experiences, shaped by the restrictions imposed upon them by society, religion, and each other.

It’s a film about learning how to navigate the fulfillment of our needs or the procurement of meaningful connections.

As a sumptuous visual spectacle shot by the formidable DP Manu Dacosse, it’s a labyrinth worth getting lost in

Elegant, moody, and intense The Secret Agent mines through the rubble of the past, reconstructing the beauty and terror of a time long gone but still haunting the present.

Layered, almost kaleidoscopic metaphors evolve through religious and politically minded themes, and the end result feels like a Gaspar Noe adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

Dedicating the film to his sisters, Khatami dives into the toxic attachment styles fostered and reinforced through repressive gender roles in a traditionally heteropatriarchal culture, where the absorption of oppression cements endless intergenerational trauma. But Khatami explores the aftermath of a reckoning, the consequences of which prove to be significant.

Hypnotic and transfixing, it’s a film experience demanding marination, only bothering to explain itself in stops and starts, like an amnesiac slowly puzzling together constantly shuffled memories.