Festival Review: Elser / 13 Minutes (2015)
★★★☆☆
What can change a man from pacifist to freedom fighter? Oliver Hirschbiegel’s 13 Minutes pays tribute to the German resistant Georg Elser.
Germany
Festival Review: Every Thing Will Be Fine (2015)
★★★☆☆
A gloriously atmospheric 3D thriller, Wim Wenders’ Every Thing Will Be Fine charts the soul’s repair after a bruising trauma.
Festival Review: As We Were Dreaming / Als Wir Träumten (2015)
★★★☆☆
The very German story of rudderless youth in the wake of reunification, Andreas Dresen’s As We Were Dreaming makes for an uninspired and unoriginal adaptation.
Festival Review: Victoria (2015)
★★★★☆
Dancing, walking, laughing and shooting their way down the boulevard of broken dreams, Sebastian Schipper’s Victoria is a lyrical one-take wonder.
Festival Review: Tough Love / Härte (2015)
★★★☆☆
From pimp to karate teacher, Rosa von Praunheim’s Härte paints a portrait through documentary and drama of a life of violence after a childhood of abuse.
Festival Review: The Queen Of The Desert (2015)
★★☆☆☆
A bombastic wannabe epic about desert explorer Gertrude Bell, not even Kidman and Franco can save Werner Herzog’s The Queen Of The Desert.
Stations Of The Cross / Kreuzweg (2014)
★★★☆☆
A spare, structuralist story of a girl’s Passion as she offers herself to God, Dietrich Brüggemann’s Stations Of The Cross is quickly reduced to easy finger-wagging.
Cathedrals of Culture (2014)
★★★★☆
Based on an original idea by Wim Wenders, Cathedrals Of Culture is a portmanteau of six directors finding their own genius in architectural space.
London Film Festival 2014: Song From The Forest
Song From The Forest Structured around a liturgy rather than a dramaturgy, Michael Obert’s Song From The Forest is a contemplative study of an…
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London Film Festival 2014: The Cut
The Cut The move to Hollywood, or English-language filmmaking isn’t always easy, to which Michaël R. Roskam’s The Drop can testify. But despite a…
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The Police Officer’s Wife / Die Frau Des Polizisten (2013)
★★★☆☆
A history of (domestic) violence, Philip Gröning’s The Police Officer’s Wife combines contemplative chapters with stark moments of unsettling violence.
Hannah Arendt (2012)
★★★☆☆
A portrait of the great thinker in troubled times, Margarethe von Trotta’s Hannah Arendt is more than a woman.
Lore (2012)
★★★★☆
Set in 1945 in a Germany coming to terms with defeat, Cate Shortland’s Lore is an intimate and evocative portrait of lost innocence.
Barbara (2012)
★★★★☆
Braving surveillance, repression and dreams of escape, Christian Petzold’s Barbara looks at life behind the Iron Curtain in this genre-busting romantic thriller.