A Woman’s Life (2017)
★★★★☆
A Woman’s Life is a beautifully staged and acted period drama by Stéphane Brizé that unfolds over decades in 19th century France.
Belgium
Félicité (2017)
★★★★☆
The (African) portrait of a lady, Alain Gomis’ Félicité is a dazzling, vibrant depiction of Africa, womanhood and dreams of a life.
Thelma (2017)
★★★★☆
In Thelma, both the main protagonist and director Joachim Trier realise the potential of her psychic powers, culminating in a taut and shocking narrative that refuses to bow down to one particular genre.
French Film Festival UK: Slack Bay (Ma Loute) (2016)
★★★★☆
Divided into stalwarts of French cinema and non-professional actors, Bruno Dumont’s crime caper Slack Bay exposes the grotesque in everyone.
25th French Film Festival UK 2017
★★★★☆
Over six weeks from 2 November – 17 December, the 25th UK French Film Festival presents 46 films in 300 screenings in 30 cities and 34 cinemas.
BFI LFF: Félicité (2017)
★★★★☆
The (African) portrait of a lady, Alain Gomis’ Félicité is a dazzling, vibrant depiction of Africa, womanhood and dreams of a life.
BFI LFF: L’Amant Double (The Double Lover) (2017)
★★★☆☆
François Ozon is on quirky erotic form in L’Amant Double, a mystery of psychoanalysis and seduction.
BFI LFF: The Racer and the Jailbird (Le Fidèle) (2017)
★★★★☆
Xavier Beauvois’ The Racer and the Jailbird stars Adèle Exarchopoulos and Matthias Schoenaerts in an intense, high-speed love affair.
Brimstone (2016)
★★★★☆
Brimstone is an almost unbearably violent take on the Western with a strong female character at its centre.
Insyriated (2017)
★★★★☆
Philippe Van Leeuw’s Insyriated is a suspenseful microcosm of Syria’s civil war played out through its effects on one family and the hard decisions they have to take to survive.
Return to Ithaca (2014)
★★★☆☆
Laurent Cantet’s Return to Ithaca creates a poignant microcosm of Cuban society as an expat returns to rejoin his old friends’ reunion.
Scribe (2016)
★★★★☆
Scribe is an enjoyable old-school noirish thriller by Thomas Kruithof, starring François Cluzet.
Slack Bay (2016)
★★★★☆
Divided into stalwarts of French cinema and non-professional actors, Bruno Dumont’s crime caper Slack Bay exposes the grotesque in everyone.
Cannes review: Rodin (2017)
★★★★☆
Rodin is a ploddingly, inexplicably uninteresting biopic of the revolutionary sculptor by Jacques Doillon.