Berlinale: Garbage (2018)
★★★☆☆
Q’s Garbage unfurls like a beautiful scream of pain and rage against Indian society gone dystopianly wrong.
festivals
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.
The Shape of Water (2017)
★★★★★
Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water is a fairy tale, a story of love, loss and friendship, and a magical cinematic joy.
Loveless (2017)
★★★★★
Shown through a couple’s reactions to the disappearance of their son, Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Loveless (Nelyubov) is a crushing comment on a loveless society and its people.
Journey’s End (2017)
★★☆☆☆
Journey’s End, director Sam Dibbs’ adaptation of R.C.Sherriff’s stage play, struggles to entrench itself in WWI.
Daphne (2017)
★★★☆☆
A strong directorial debut by Peter Mackie Burns features an award-winning performance by Emily Beecham as the compelling central character in Daphne.
Downsizing (2017)
★★★☆☆
Alexander Payne’s Downsizing is a fantasy satire in microcosm on life, the universe and everything.
Last Flag Flying (2017)
★★★★☆
Richard Linklater’s Last Flag Flying is an elderly Last Detail-type road trip in search of the American military dream.
A Woman’s Life (2017)
★★★★☆
A Woman’s Life is a beautifully staged and acted period drama by Stéphane Brizé that unfolds over decades in 19th century France.
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.
Ava (2017)
★★★★☆
In Ava, the increasing darkness of Léa Mysius’ direction echoes the encroaching blindness of its young heroine in a strikingly original coming-of-age story.
Mountains May Depart (2015)
★★★★☆
Jia Zhang Ke’s Mountains May Depart is an epic vision of decades of change in China, its people and diaspora, with a compelling central character.
Menashe (2017)
★★★★☆
Menashe by Joshua Z Weinstein is a very human story set in a uniquely closed community that turns out to have universal appeal.