Festival Review: 600 Miles / 600 Millas (2015)
★★★☆☆
A tense tale of Mexican machismo as a young gun-runner hooks up with a US cop, Gabriel Ripstein’s 600 Miles shows the gangster genre from its sensitive side.
Festival Review: 45 Years (2015)
★★★★☆
With brilliant performances from Rampling and Courtenay, Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years is an intense observation of a lifetime of marriage unravelled in one week.
Festival Review: The Queen Of The Desert (2015)
★★☆☆☆
A bombastic wannabe epic about desert explorer Gertrude Bell, not even Kidman and Franco can save Werner Herzog’s The Queen Of The Desert.
Festival Review: Taxi Tehran (2015)
★★★★☆
Turning the camera upon himself for the third time, Jafar Panahi’s Taxi is a moving portrait of the politics of filming and the filming of politics.
Festival Review: Blue Blood / Sangue Azul (2015)
★★★☆☆
A mesmerising portrait of the loneliness of the beautiful, Lírio Ferreira’s Blue Blood is an enigmatic blend of circus, ballet and cinema.
Selma (2014)
★★★☆☆
A powerful dramatisation of Martin Luther King’s final battle, Ava DuVernay’s Selma is a moving account of the march on racism and the man behind the movement.
The Turning (2013)
★★★☆☆
A collection of short films marking the turning points in interconnected lives, The Turning is a dark celebration of Australia and its frustrated people.
Amour Fou (2014)
★★☆☆☆
A sober portrait of the woman accompanying Heinrich von Kleist into the hereafter, Jessica Hausner’s Amour Fou isn’t quite as mad as it should be.
Festival Review: Nobody Wants The Night / Nadie Quiere La Noche Aie (2015)
★★★☆☆
Shifting the story from polar explorer Peary to his wife, Isabel Coixet’sNobody Wants The Night offers a distinctly female slant on colonisation.
Son Of A Gun (2014)
★★★☆☆
Action-packed with prison getaways, bullion heists and criminal double-crossing, Son Of A Gun delivers a high-octane thriller. Just cut the monkey business.
La Maison De La Radio (2013)
★★★★☆
Did video kill the radio? Nicolas Philibert uncovers the mystery of the medium in his warmly human documentary La Maison de la Radio.
Testament Of Youth (2014)
★★★★☆
A beautiful adaptation of Vera Brittain’s bestselling memoir, James Kent’s Testament Of Youth is a bitter tale of love in wartime for the 21st century.
Wild (2014)
★★★★☆
With a brilliant one-hander from Reese Witherspoon as Cheryl Strayed trekking the PCT, Jean-Marc Vallée’s Wild makes for rehydrated but beautiful soul food.
The Last Of The Unjust / Le Dernier Des Injustes (2013)
★★★★☆
If this is a man. Claude Lanzmann’s The Last Of The Unjust recuts unused Shoah interviews to reveal the controversial figure of Benjamin Murmelstein – Europe’s last Jewish Elder.