This latest film from Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda is masterful storytelling. I came out of the screening with a similar feeling to when I watched Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite (2019); contemporary South Korea where the dramatic tension comes from depth of character not plot.
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There is something inevitable about the trajectory of Ali’s life in Lofty Nathan’s sunbleached drama of hopelessness that foreshadows the start of the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia in 2011.
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This is a quintessential film festival film. It immerses you into a little known culture (North Ossetia), claustrophobically shows you the grim reality of an abused person (Ada), weaves a metaphor throughout (those clenched fists), and gives you a final act that will leave you confounded, exhilarated and thinking about it long afterwards.
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I find myself wanting to like South Korean auteur Hong Sangsoo’s work. Maybe I’m choosing the wrong ones out of his huge filmography as they seem whimsically pedestrian and self-absorbed, albeit in a way that’s meant to be charming.
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If you watched Deerskin (2019), you’ll know what to expect from ‘fabulist’ Quentin Dupieux.
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This is one of those dense, evocative films that will sweep you up whilst also leaving you not sure of what you’ve just seen.
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Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes have teamed up to bring us a deft blend of Australiana, comedy and horror. It reminded me of Little Monsters in its loving and gory depiction of modern foibles.
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“Put…the cabbage…down!” Jim Archer melds the whimsy of Wallace & Gromit with the pathos of Lars and the Real Girl and the unease of The Office to bring us a feel-good coming-of-age story of loner Brian.
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Colm Bairéad has given us a surprisingly unsentimental look at what shapes us as children in this Gaelic language exploration of a summer in the life of one neglected child.
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I think I knew this was going to be overblown Cronenberg fan boy drivel but Kristen Stewart so I pushed on through to a 9.45pm fourth film of the day sold out screening. I was lulled occasionally by KStew and the always mesmerising Léa Seydoux and stuck it through to its trite ending.
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