Sheila O'Malley

The tensions in “Living the Land” are experienced in a bittersweet key. We are looking at Atlantis. The film is deeply mournful, but also pierced with joy.

There’s strong emotion in “Holy Days,” but it results entirely from the talented cast. The story’s structure is so phony and over-determined that there is no real suspense, and, even more deadly, the tone is artificially “comedic.” True moments of unfettered humor are nowhere to be seen.

In less deft hands, the film could have been a clichéd affair, featuring Amanda delivering an impassioned courtroom speech that brings the judge to tears and the onlookers to a burst of applause. “Tow”’s distinct tone avoids these clichés—the film is often quite funny—turning the expected into the unexpected.

Vesuvius might erupt again. The angel of history keeps moving forward. Time destroys, preserves, and then returns (one hopes, at least). Rosi’s film is a meditative and moving document showing that process and possibility.

EPiC is so vivid it makes Elvis seem not like an entertainer from the past, but a figure who lives in the perpetual Right Now.

In an era of stark division, not to mention demands for simplistic storytelling one can absorb while doing household chores, “Honey Bunch” revels in the uncertain, ungraspable, the neither-nor of it all.

A lot of thrillers are exciting but empty. “In Cold Light” is thrilling but very full in unexpected and complicated ways.

Sound of Falling operates like a ghost story, complete with a haunted house, but the ghosts aren’t supernatural. The ghost is history.

What “We Bury the Dead” does really well is remind us that the zombies were once-alive. They are someone’s mother, child, husband. In many zombie movies, they are a faceless unstoppable mob, and you want all of them to be put down stat. They’re the ultimate “heavy”. Here, they are still scary, but they are also sad. What happened to them is tragic. “We Bury the Dead” never forgets that.

Merv is heartwarming, in the abstract, but the heat generated is strictly lukewarm.

Even with all the sexual trauma, The Chronology of Water manages the impossible, making a lot of the sex Lidia has as an adult look not just fun and playful, but mind-blowing and revelatory. Reclaiming your sexuality after having it stolen from you as a child is a huge, huge deal.

Come Closer is a unique take on grief, containing insight into projection and transference, as well as the way obsession is almost a relief from having to face the unfaceable. Nesher’s script belabors the point at times, but as a director, she captures the rhythms of Tel Aviv’s social swirl, the alcohol-spiked bell jar of clubs and dancing and music, all the things that make up the manic nightlife of a lost twentysomething who has no idea the party is already over.

Southern wields the tropes in a stylistically over-determined way–jump-scares and all–which cheapens the delicate and poetic narrative.

The film Shackleton wanted to make clearly wasn’t a passion project coming from his deepest soul. It’s not like he’s Orson Welles yearning for the unfairly butchered “Magnificent Ambersons.” “Zodiac Killer Project” is fairly thin in both conception and execution, but it is very much “my kind of thing,” particularly his dry, humorous tone. He makes a good and entertaining guide.

Traditions are people’s stories, connecting them to their ancestors, to this patch of ground. Knowledge is passed down literally—recipes, sewing patterns, hand-drawn truffle maps—but also symbolically; myths, fables, fairy tales. You can’t put a price on any of it, and that, ultimately, is what Trifole is all about.

None of this is easy, and not much of it is fun. But “Die My Love” is a wild and worthwhile ride.

Polsky is so honest he has to add a question mark to the film’s declarative title. This slight detachment, this hesitation to believe without question, makes Polsky the best of guides.

Goldstein and Poots’ chemistry is authentic, and without it the film wouldn’t and couldn’t work.

The tone of the film is a little lukewarm, and the visuals aren’t the most thrilling, but there’s a very welcome absence of condescension and sentimentality that is often used in the portrayal of elderly people on film, particularly when they engage in activities not typically associated with their age.

Went Up the Hill doesn’t just explore grief, it expresses it.

The film takes a while to find its sea legs and peters out a bit in its big finish sequence, but sticks the landing in the final scene. The whole thing is a little uneven, but it avoids sentimentality, perhaps the biggest trap in material involving a child.

Folktales suggests that finding the threads connecting us to our collective past is work of great healing and rejuvenation.

Drowning Dry holds you at arm’s length, but I found it more moving—and unsettling—because of that.

Wild Diamond doesn’t judge or look down on its main character and doesn’t try to control how we view her. This is a welcome rarity.

Hargitay’s approach is intuitive in a really courageous way, because she’s so open to the process, to her own pain and loss. Behind every frame, you feel her need to understand, to learn, to look.

The quiet character-based scenes are often mesmerizing, as are the dreamy sequences where time seems to stand still. When the plot makes its demands, the spell is broken.

In many ways, the documentary is as unprecedented as Ardern’s career.

If the characters aren’t three-dimensional and the plot is so predictable it creaks into motion by the five-minute mark. you haven’t done the work necessary to pull in your audience. You’ve got to give us something to hang our cowboy hats on.