BFI LFF: The Racer and the Jailbird (Le Fidèle) (2017)
★★★★☆
Xavier Beauvois’ The Racer and the Jailbird stars Adèle Exarchopoulos and Matthias Schoenaerts in an intense, high-speed love affair.
France
BFI LFF: The Summit (La Cordillera) (2017)
★★★★☆
Santiago Mitre’s political thriller The Summit is a prescient tale of high-level corruption.
ZOOLOGY (2016)
★★★★☆
Russian director Ivan Tverdovsky’s black comedy Zoology is a dark satire on the invisibility of older women with a stunning central performance by Natalia Pavlenkova.
Brimstone (2016)
★★★★☆
Brimstone is an almost unbearably violent take on the Western with a strong female character at its centre.
Borg vs McEnroe (2017)
★★★☆☆
Janus Metz’s Borg vs McEnroe recreates Wimbledon 1980 and delves into the winning psychology of the two tennis rivals.
In Between (2016)
★★★★☆
Mayasaloun Hamoud debut feature In Between is a vibrant, pacey Sex and the City look for the first time at the contemporary pressures on three young Arab women when the ‘city’ is Tel Aviv.
Insyriated (2017)
★★★★☆
Philippe Van Leeuw’s Insyriated is a suspenseful microcosm of Syria’s civil war played out through its effects on one family and the hard decisions they have to take to survive.
Return to Ithaca (2014)
★★★☆☆
Laurent Cantet’s Return to Ithaca creates a poignant microcosm of Cuban society as an expat returns to rejoin his old friends’ reunion.
Mimosas (2016)
★★★☆☆
Oliver Laxe’s second film Mimosas is an enigmatic, spiritual North African odyssey.
Scribe (2016)
★★★★☆
Scribe is an enjoyable old-school noirish thriller by Thomas Kruithof, starring François Cluzet.
The Death of Louis XIV (2016)
★★★★☆
Albert Serra’s compelling film about the slow death of the Sun King features an extraordinary performance by the legendary Jean-Pierre Léaud.
The Midwife (2017)
★★★★☆
In Martin Provost’s enjoyable The Midwife two outstanding actresses confront birth, life, love and death – as well as each other.
Alone in Berlin (2016)
★★☆☆☆
Adapting Hans Fallada’s German resistance novel for the silver screen, Vincent Perez’ Alone In Berlin recreates the plot but none of the drama.
Slack Bay (2016)
★★★★☆
Divided into stalwarts of French cinema and non-professional actors, Bruno Dumont’s crime caper Slack Bay exposes the grotesque in everyone.