The effect isn’t unlike nostalgia, a longing for when humour appealed to our childish side, uncomplicated and universal; it is the easiest way to plaster a smile across your face for 100 minutes. You are unlikely to find a funnier or more inventive film this year.
Beneath the documentary textures of BLOODY NOSE, EMPTY POCKETS, its vérité camerawork and calm but quick editing schemes, something planned and constructed is at work. The Ross brothers transform a concocted scenario into a space full of what seems like extempore feeling and lived-in experience. Marc Nelson reviews.
That the story behind THE CHESS GAME OF THE WIND’s premiering, banning, rediscovery, and eventual restoration isn’t more extraordinary than the film itself should emphasise the exceptional nature of director Mohammad Reza Aslani’s achievement.
Chloe Zhao’s NOMADLAND is a beautiful and melancholic story embodied with heart and strength by Frances McDormand. Zhao’s film scatters the shattered remains of the American Dream amongst the breathtaking vistas of the ‘land of the free’; a romantic sonnet dedicated to a broken place. Jim Ross reviews.
There is so much more that could be said in greater detail about what Isabel Sandoval has achieved with LINGUA FRANCA. Cathy Brennan reviews.
The films Pedro Costa has made since 1997 are all testaments to a method of collaborative production. Marc Nelson reviews his latest.
The fantasy of your life is also deeply a part of the life you actually lead. This idea is understood, played with, and ultimately outdone by Lucio Castro’s debut feature, END OF THE CENTURY.
If ABOUT ENDLESSNESS is more of the same from Andersson, whose work is the strange offspring of Samuel Beckett and Jacques Tati, then it’s hard to see why that’s not altogether positive. Like Mae West said: “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.”
While THE TRUTH is a departure for Hirokazu Kore-eda, the tone and temperament of the film share a great deal with gentler works in the director’s filmography.
BLOOD ON HER NAME deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Jeremy Saulnier’s BLUE RUIN and indeed Jordan Peele’s GET OUT as a bloody melodrama made by a new director expertly flexing his movie muscles. Andrew Nickolds reviews.
