If you watched Deerskin (2019), you’ll know what to expect from ‘fabulist’ Quentin Dupieux.
Continue readingIncredible But True (Incroyable Mais Vrai) (2022)
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Clara 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 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 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 readingHappiest Season (2020)
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Christmas movies ideally should give us love and hope and not drown us in corn syrup. This queer Christmas rom-com has just enough tartness to balance the sugar.
Continue readingHow to Please a Woman (2022)
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A gentle and slightly awkward Australian comedy by Renée Webster that puts female pleasure in the centre of the story.
Continue readingA Hero (Ghahreman) (2021)
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It’s a relief to watch an Asghar Farhadi film that returns to the morally complex form of his earlier films like A Separation (2011) and The Past (2013). His dip into Hollywood with Everybody Knows (2018) was a disappointment for those who love his exploration of Iranian culture.
Continue readingNever Gonna Snow Again (Sniegu juz nigdy nie bedzie) (2020)
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This beautiful and decidedly enigmatic mood piece from Malgorzata Szumowska (Mug (2018), Body (2015)) and Michal Englert confounds as much as it satisfies.
Continue readingDelicious (Delicieux) (2021)
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Don’t watch this film hungry. With all the warmth and savour of other European foodie films like Chocolat (2000) and Babette’s Feast (1987), Éric Besnard’s Delicieux weaves a gentle story about the French Revolution in the guise of a tale about gastronomy, forgiveness and independence.
Continue readingThe First 54 Years – An Abbreviated Manual for Military Occupation (2021)
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It is hard not to despair of the world and the depravities that humans will perpetrate as you watch this measured dissection of the mechanics of a military occupation. Avi Mograbi balances the message by having former Israeli soldiers dispassionately recount their part in the occupation of Palestine, illustrating a system that seeks to colonise, dehumanise and deconstruct a nation.
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