Berlinale: Transit (2018)
★★★★☆
Christian Petzold’s fascinating present-day World War II film Transit is thematically and narratively dense, but there’s nothing dense in the way it goes about handling it.
Berlinale: Dovlatov (2018)
★★★☆☆
Alexey German Jr’s character study of a great Russian writer in Dovlatovencapsulates its time period superbly, but fails to go beyond that.
Berlinale: Tower. A Bright Day. (2017)
★★★☆☆
As mystifying as it is transfixing, Jagoda Szlec’s feature-length debut Tower. A Bright Day is an astute blend of dread and mundanity.
Journey’s End (2017)
★★☆☆☆
Journey’s End, director Sam Dibbs’ adaptation of R.C.Sherriff’s stage play, struggles to entrench itself in WWI.
Battle of the Sexes (2017)
★★★★☆
Serving well-rounded feminist statements while expertly juggling three intertwining stories, Battle of the Sexes is an outwardly reaching argument encapsulated in a tennis match.
Manifesto (2015)
★★★★☆
Blanchett and Rosefeldt have teamed up to produce a series of manifesto-based vignettes that not only ponder the subject of art, but revel in its being.
Heartstone (2016)
★★★★☆
A simmering study of youth and sexuality set against jaw-dropping Icelandic landscapes, Heartstone gets kids right, if not necessarily which kids to focus on.
The Florida Project (2017)
★★★ύ☆
Sean Baker’s The Florida Project is a gorgeous sugar-rush adventure and a sobering study of poverty, though it leans too much on the former for the latter to leave its sting.
Thelma (2017)
★★★★☆
In Thelma, both the main protagonist and director Joachim Trier realise the potential of her psychic powers, culminating in a taut and shocking narrative that refuses to bow down to one particular genre.
BFI LFF: The Florida Project (2017)
★★★☆☆
Sean Baker’s The Florida Project is a gorgeous sugar-rush adventure and a sobering study of poverty, though it leans too much on the former for the latter to leave its sting.
BFI LFF: Golden Exits (2017)
★★★★★
A universal episodic epic disguised as a character drama, Golden Exits unravels into something special while its characters remain tight-lipped.
BFI LFF: Lucky (2017)
★★★★☆
A fitting sendoff for a fantastic actor, Harry Dean Stanton embodies Lucky in a funny and touching slice of life that’s nearing its expiry date.
BFI LFF 2017: Manifesto (2015)
★★★★☆
Blanchett and Rosefeldt have teamed up to produce a series of manifesto-based vignettes that not only ponder the subject of art, but revel in its being.
BFI LFF: Journey’s End (2017)
★★☆☆☆
Journey’s End, director Sam Dibbs’ adaptation of R.C.Sherriff’s stage play, struggles to entrench itself in WWI.