School of Babel/La Cour de Babel (2014)
★★★★☆
French director Julie Bertuccelli’s classroom documentary School of Babel examines twenty-four foreign teenagers’ struggles as they adapt to a new life, culture and language in France.
Film reviews by Dog and Wolf
★★★★☆
French director Julie Bertuccelli’s classroom documentary School of Babel examines twenty-four foreign teenagers’ struggles as they adapt to a new life, culture and language in France.
★★★☆☆
In Kevin Macdonald’s Black Sea, a motley crew of British and Russian submariners try to recover a fortune in gold from a sunk World War II German submarine.
★★★☆☆
Down-on-his-luck Carter has recently become homeless, single and unemployed. Desperate to win back his ex-girlfriend, he goes off on an adventure throughout London to find her, picking up some odd helpers along the way.
★★★★★
Unseen footage from David Hockney’s personal video library and revealing interviews make this the definitive biography of Britain’s most influential living artist.
★★★★☆
A visual poem on the sinister violence of colonisation, Göran Olsson’s Concerning Violence appeals for a new kind of future for Africa.
★★★☆☆
A spare, structuralist story of a girl’s Passion as she offers herself to God, Dietrich Brüggemann’s Stations Of The Cross is quickly reduced to easy finger-wagging.
★★★★★
Winner of the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Winter Sleep is a devastating portrait of a man who tries to do good but radiates an icy chill.
★★★☆☆
Emotional revelations in store in this beautifully acted drama as an American claims his inheritance of a valuable Paris flat and finds there is a sitting tenant.
★★★★☆
Galvanising intense performances from a stellar cast, Morten Tyldum’s The Imitation Game is a war movie to stir the blood, but trips up over its queer hero.
★★★☆☆
Three unconnected stories of three couples in three cities – New York, Paris and Rome – are interwoven in a surprising way.
★★★☆☆
A superb performance from Tom Hardy and a cast of intriguing supporting characters saves this often rudderless New York based crime drama from the drop.
★★★★★
Life-affirming, powerful and utterly moving, this account of Scottish music icon Edwyn Collins is a truly remarkable achievement in filmmaking.
★★★★☆
As the cold wind of corruption blows through the Siberian steppes, Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Leviathan sees no hope of redemption. Or maybe just a little.
★★★☆☆
A monochrome portrait of poet Dylan Thomas running amuck stateside, Andy Goddard’s Set Fire To The Stars runs high on character but low on emotion.