Festival Review: The Brand New Testament (2015)
★★★☆☆
God is alive and living in Brussels, Jaco Van Dormael’s The Brand New Testament takes on the Jealous One with quirk and fancy. And an enormous gorilla.
London Film Festival
Festival Review: Office (2015)
★★★☆☆
An exuberant musical extravaganza about the financial crisis, Johnnie To’s Office offers an energetic, occasionally brash, satire on capitalism.
Festival Review: Dheepan (2015)
★★★★☆
Set on the battlefields of Sri Lanka and the banlieues, Jacques Audiard’s Palme d’Or winning Dheepan is an inspirational tale on the power of family.
Festival Review: Chevalier (2015)
★★★★☆
Gently prodding men’s insecurities and weaknesses, Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Chevalier offers a sardonic look at the games men play.
Festival Review: Sunset Song (2015)
★★★☆☆
Agyness Deyn is the Flower of Scotland in Terence Davies’ Sunset Song, a slowly ambitious and symphonic evocation of land and country.
Festival Review: Cowboys (2015)
★★★☆☆
Based on John Ford’s The Searchers, Thomas Bidegain’s Cowboys is a thoroughly modern, European western of cowboys and Islamists.
Festival Review: Youth (2015)
★★★☆☆
A deliberate break from the success of The Great Beauty, Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth finds a lower-key kind of beauty in a Swiss sanatorium.
Festival Review: They Will Have To Kill Us First (2015)
★★★☆☆
Malian music in exile, Johanna Schwartz’s documentary They Will Have To Kill Us First is a celebration of music and its invincible power.
Festival Review: Francofonia (2015)
★★★★☆
An impressionistic portrait of the Louvre Museum under Nazi occupation, Alexander Sokurov’s Francofonia reveals the chequered history of art.
Festival Review: Green Room (2015)
★★★☆☆
Carving out his own genre of trapped men fighting for survival, Jeremy Saulnier’s taut, gruesome and suspenseful Green Room pulls no punches.
Festival Review: Krisha (2015)
★★★☆☆
Filmed at home with friends and family, Trey Edward Shults’ Krisha is a Cassavetes-style portrait of recovery and addiction. And much more than a home video.
Festival Review: Carol
★★★★☆
Adapted from the novel by Patricia Highsmith, Todd Haynes’ Carol basks in a 1950s glow of glorious chiffons, illicit love and stifled emotion.
Festival Review: An (2015)
★★★☆☆
With cherry blossom, sweet red bean paste and lovable pensioners, Naomi Kawase’s An is a light, soft-centred Japanese fancy.
Festival Review: Desierto (2015)
★★☆☆☆
A horror movie set on the Mexican border, Jonas Cuaron’s Desierto is a barren wasteland of American violence and Mexican victims.