Woman at War (2018)
★★★★☆
Woman at War ((Kona fer í stríð) by Benedikt Erlingsson is an environmental drama and a whimsical mid-life-crisis comedy.
★★★★☆
Woman at War ((Kona fer í stríð) by Benedikt Erlingsson is an environmental drama and a whimsical mid-life-crisis comedy.
★★★★★
The exquisite Ash Is Purest White by Jia Zhang Ke, starring Tao Zhao in an extraordinary performance, follows the lives of its characters against the background of a rapidly transforming China.
★★★★★
In Donbass Sergei Loznitsa’s anger at the war in eastern Ukraine pours out like red-hot lava in 13 episodes of a vicious cycle of dark comedy, absurdity, brutality and horror.
★★★★☆
Paolo Sorrentino’s Loro is an excoriating comment on the tacky corruption that surrounded the notorious former prime minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi.
★★★★☆
The Sisters Brothers is a darkly funny, revisionist Western directed by Jacques Audiard.
★★★★☆
Willem Dafoe stunningly inhabits the outer shell of tormented artist Vincent Van Gogh in Julian Schnabel’s disturbing, arty biopic At Eternity’s Gate.
★★★★☆
Everybody Knows (Todos Lo Saben) is Iranian Asgar Farhadi’s Spanish-language first, a family drama-cum-thriller with top stars Penélope Cruz, Javier Badem and Ricardo Darín.
★★★★☆
Foxtrot is director Samuel Moaz’s original, surreal black comedy of the paradoxes and contradictions of life in Israel and Palestine on the edge of war.
★★★★☆
Sauvage is Camille Vidal-Naquet’s relentless view of the extreme lifestyle of a male prostitute, starring Félix Maritaud.
★★★★☆
Capernaum is Nadine Labaki’s heartbreaking howl of rage and compassion on behalf of innocence compromised in a hell on earth.
★★★☆☆
Robert Guédiguian reflects on bittersweet changes in life, death and society in his native south of France in The House by the Sea.
★★★★☆
Lars von Trier shocks and provokes in bloody, violent, sadistic The House That Jack Built.
★★★★★
The Wild Pear Tree (Ahlat Agaci) is a masterpiece by Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan.
★★★★☆
3 Days in Quiberon by Emily Atef is a compelling slice of a few days in the life of actress Romy Schneider as she gives her last interview.