It’s hard not to feel affected by this intense and beautiful historical drama set in late 19th century Iceland.
Continue readingGodland (Vanskabte Land) (2022)
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You Won’t Be Alone (2022)
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It’s going to be hard to forget this dark fable by Australian Goran Stolevski (his very different Of An Age is also screening at MIFF). He’s not afraid to be daring, setting the story in 19th century Macedonia and centring it on a largely non-verbal girl.
Continue readingEverybody’s Oma (2022)
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I cried right through the end of this touching documentary that shines a light on the experience of hidden carers.
Continue readingWe Might As Well Be Dead (2022)
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A well-dressed couple and their child trek through a forest and enter a compound where a white tower block rises amidst verdant lawns and a manicured golf course. They are desperate for their residence application to be accepted in this dystopian world where everything outside the fence is, seemingly, dangerous.
Continue readingClara Sola (2021)
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A remarkable first feature (and Costa Rica’s Oscar submission), Nathalie Álvarez Mesén spins a lush and dark tale of the internal rage of a woman kept confined.
Continue readingThe Pawnshop (Lombard) (2022)
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Clips from the US ‘reality’ TV show Hard Core Pawn occasionally appear in my socials and its depiction of pawnshops is firmly rooted in the capitalist myth that those without somehow deserve their lot. The owners unapologetically buy low and sell high and aggressively eject the many grifters trying to con them with worthless or stolen junk. In Lukasz Kowalski’s empathetic observational documentary Lombard, we see poverty in all its forms in Poland’s largest pawnshop.
Continue readingKāinga (2022)
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The third in a trilogy of films raising the voices of women (after Waru (2017) and Vai (2019)), Kāinga (or home) gives us eight short films each focusing on a girl or woman from an Asian country trying to find her place in Aotearoa New Zealand. The connection between them, as the stories span decades, is the same house on 11 Rua Road where they all live or visit.
Continue readingThe Worst Person in the World (Verdens Verste Menneske) (2021)
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Told in 12 chapters (with a prologue and an epilogue), Joachim Trier immerses us in a contemplative story of a woman who seems to be failing at being an adult.
Continue readingParallel Mothers (Madres Paralelas) (2021)
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Pedro Almodóvar gives us two tenuously connected stories, worth watching for the powerful performances of Penélope Cruz and newcomer Milena Smit.
Continue readingPromising Young Woman (2020)
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I have been waiting for the release of this one for many months. The trailer is a cracker with a drunk Cassie (Carey Mulligan) being picked up a series of ‘nice guys’ who then sexually assault her in her comatose state.
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