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.
Germany
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.
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.
London Film Festival 2014: Phoenix
Phoenix by Mark Wilshin Loosely based on extracts from Hubert Monteilhet’s Le Retour Des Cendres, Christian Petzold’s Phoenix plays a dangerous game with its…
Read More
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…
Read More
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…
Read More
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.
Berlin Film Festival 2014: Day 6
All’s fair in love and war. But in Feo Aladag’s war film Zwischen Welten, it seems like nothing’s really fair. Following an Afghani interpreter…
Read More
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.