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.
Germany
The Other Side of Hope (2016)
★★★★☆
Aki Kaurismäki is in top droll, compassionate form dealing with the refugee crisis in The Other Side of Hope.
Cannes review: Happy End (2017)
★★★★☆
Michael Haneke’s Happy End deconstructs a wealthy bourgeois family living a life oblivious to the human beings around them with chilling results.
Cannes review: The Square (2017)
★★★★☆
Ruben Östlund’s The Square is a chilly satire on the pretensions of art and Sweden’s comfortable society.
Cannes review: Jupiter’s Moon (2017)
★★★★☆
In Jupiter’s Moon Kornél Mundruczó takes an intriguing and timely magical realist premise but leaves its resolution in mid air.
Frantz (2016)
★★★★☆
François Ozon’s Frantz takes you on a haunting journey into the unexpected ramifications of grief, forgiveness and identity in the European aftermath of World War I.
Letters from Baghdad (2016)
★★★★☆
Clever use of previously unseen archive footage and original letters brings to life the extraordinary story of a forgotten female Lawrence of Arabia in fascinating biopic Letters from Baghdad.
The Olive Tree (2016)
★★★☆☆
The Olive Tree is a heartwarming film scripted by Ken Loach’s collaborator Paul Laverty, directed by Icíar Bollaín, demonstrating the power of personal conviction and positive action.
Elle (2016)
★★★★☆
Isabelle Huppert is elegantly transgressive in Paul Verhoeven’s disturbing Elle.
Return to Montauk (2017)
★★★☆☆
Pianissimo rather than Moderato Cantabile, Volker Schlöndorff’s Return To Montauk fails to soar despite the best possible score.
Beuys (2017)
★★★☆☆
A portrait of the artist as a revolutionary thinker, Andres Veiel’s documentary Beuys is a simple but elegant and educational bio-doc.
Bright Nights (2017)
★★★☆☆
A war of the wordless, Thomas Arslan’s Bright Nights is a painfully accurate if unilluminating portrait of the father-son relationship.
Es war einmal in Deutschland… (2017)
★★★☆☆
With returning Jews looking to get rich and make it to the US, Sam Garbarski’s Es war einmal in Deutschland… unpicks the postwar search for truth with bitter glee.
Cannes Review: Toni Erdmann (2016)
★★★★☆
A feelgood father-and-daughter comedy, Maren Ade’s Toni Erdmann sees the joylessness of the corporate world undone by paternal clowning.