Restless (2011)
★★★★☆
Doomed love with a straight twist, Gus Van Sant’s Restless hides a Last Days morbidity in a quirky teenage romance between a terminally ill girl and a funeral mourner.
★★★★
Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (2011)
★★★★☆
Apathy and the black fight for civil rights, Göran Hugo Olsson’s Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 scours the Swedish vaults for an all-American independence.
Drive (2011)
★★★★☆
With Ryan Gosling as an übercool, unnamed getaway driver, Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive mixes LA heist movie with Melvillian lonerism for a sexy, seething delight.
Perfect Sense (2010)
★★★★☆
David Mackenzie’s Perfect Sense is a twist on both thriller and love story as a couple find each other while the world around them crumbles, sense by sense.
Mademoiselle Chambon (2009)
★★★★☆
A tender waltz of self-restrained romance, ex-couple Vincent Lindon and Sandrine Kiberlain quietly explode in Stéphane Brizé’s autumn-hued Mademoiselle Chambon.
The Skin I Live In / La Piel Que Habito (2011)
★★★★☆
Neither really a return to form for Almodóvar nor a Banderas reinvention, The Skin I Live In is good clean, honest fun. Like Frankenstein and no monster.
R – Hit First, Hit Hardest (2010)
★★★★☆
Playing the waiting game, Noer and Lindholm’s R: Hit First, Hit Hardest reveals the bitter, cinematic truth about life behind bars in a Danish prison.
In A Better World / Haevnen (2010)
★★★★☆
Split between Kenya and Denmark, Susanne Bier’s In A Better World has war and peace in its sights as its playground bullies test the pacifists to the limit.
Poetry (2010)
★★★★☆
With geriatric sex and teen suicide, Lee Changdong’s Poetry is no sensationalist exploitation drama, but a dark, tender coming of (old) age.
Bal / Honey (2010)
★★★★☆
The first and final part in Semih Kaplanoglu’s Yusuf trilogy, Honey is a tender portrait of childhood.
The Tree Of Life (2011)
★★★★☆
Set alight by a family tragedy, Terrence Malick’s beautiful The Tree Of Life spirals out from a son’s death into a divine celebration of life.
Le Quattro Volte (2010)
★★★★☆
Living la dolce vita in Calabria, Michelangelo Frammartino’s documentary fiction Le Quattro Volte is a naturalist’s reduction of man to matter.
Les Amours Imaginaires / Heartbeats (2010)
★★★★☆
Navigating the ménage à trois with elegant indifference, Xavier Dolan’s Les Amours Imaginaires is a glorious feast of colour and rancid joie de vivre. Who said anything about subtle?
Love Like Poison / Un Amour Violent (2010)
★★★★☆
Ivorian director, Katell Quillévéré’s first feature, Love Like Poison is a tender coming of age tale set amid the religious fervour of small-town Brittany.