Another Year (2010)
★★★☆☆
A four seasons symphony of age-worn contentment and unhappy boozers, Mike Leigh’s Another Year conquers and divides into haves and have-nots.
★★★☆☆
A four seasons symphony of age-worn contentment and unhappy boozers, Mike Leigh’s Another Year conquers and divides into haves and have-nots.
★★★★☆
His first English language film, Swedish director Lukas Moodysson’s Mammoth is a global story of haves and have nots intertwined with complex family relationships.
★★★☆☆
Ruben Östlund’s quirky Involuntary juxtaposes five snapshots of silly season in contemporary Sweden, challenging the audience to create their own connections.
★★★☆☆
Roving the labyrinthine world of artist Anselm Kiefer, there’s more to Sophie Fiennes’ documentary Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow than just watching paint dry.
★★★★☆
Cuffed and bound, a changing Romania is put in the dock in Corneliu Porumboiu’s Police, Adjective when a conscience-niggled policeman starts questioning the law.
★★★★☆
A Rohmeresque ramble under the Tuscan sun, Kiarostami’s Certified Copy is a freewheeling battle of the sexes. And Juliette Binoche is in a bitter mood for love.
★★★☆☆
Based on a script by Jacques Tati, Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist is a lyrical love story for sugar daddies and sweet dreamers. As well as residents of Dunedin.
★★★☆☆
With a heroin junkie and her dead lover’s gay brother hiding away together, François Ozon’s Le Refuge is a subdued meditation on parenthood and loss. It’s baby boom and bust.
★★★☆☆
As a passionate affair between two 20th century icons, Jan Kounen’s Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky is a perfumed symphony of style. But where are the heart notes?
★★★★☆
From chanson to reggae, Joann Sfar’s Gainsbourg is a soul-staking odyssey through Serge’s life and conquests, through Docteur Jekyll Et Monsieur Hyde.
★★★☆☆
A faithful adaptation of Perrault’s fairytale, Bluebeard nevertheless conceals a bevy of Catherine Breillat’s favourite themes. But where’s the eroticism?
★★★☆☆
Biting into the forbidden apple of incest, Andrew Kötting’s Ivul charts the fall of civilisation in a Russian émigré family. Or is he barking up the wrong tree?
★★★★☆
Alain Resnais, the great grand-monsieur of French cinema is de retour with Wild Grass a complex, lilting tale of the power of chance.
★★★☆☆
Cheerfully nihilistic, Benoît Jacquot’s Villa Amalia stars Isabelle Huppert as a pianist reinventing her life from scratch on the coast of Naples. O sole mio.