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.
Cannes Film Festival 2016
The Death of Louis XIV (2016)
★★★★☆
Albert Serra’s compelling film about the slow death of the Sun King features an extraordinary performance by the legendary Jean-Pierre Léaud.
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.
Frantz (2016)
★★★★☆
François Ozon’s Frantz takes you on a haunting journey into the unexpected ramifications of grief, forgiveness and identity in the European aftermath of World War I.
Harmonium (2016)
★★★★★☆
In Koji Fukada’s Harmonium, the fragile harmony of a Japanese family is shattered by the arrival of a mysterious stranger.
Clash (2016)
★★★☆☆
In Clash director Mohamed Diab creates an intensely moving microcosm of Egyptian society in the confined space of a police van as riots erupt outside.
The Handmaiden (2016)
★★★★☆
A sumptuous new adaptation of Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith, Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden is a dazzling tale of duplicity and deception.
Neruda (2016)
★★★★☆
Aquarius (2016)
★★★★☆
Aquarius is Kleber Mendonça Filho’s unhurried portrait of a fascinatingly complicated woman, meticulously characterised in a career-best performance by Sonia Braga.
Personal Shopper (2016)
★★★★☆
A charismatic, nuanced turn by Kristen Stewart holds together an improbable yet strangely compelling mixture of fashion and supernatural horror in Oliver Assayas’s Personal Shopper.
The Salesman (2016)
★★★★☆
Asghar Farhardi’s The Salesman illuminates universal moral arguments about masculinity by presenting them in parallel with a production of Arthur Miller’s stage play in contemporary Iran.
The Student (2016)
★★★★☆
Bringing Christian fundamentalism to the playground, Kirill Serebrennikov’s The Student satirises the conservatism of Russian institutions.
It’s Only the End of the World (2016)
★★★★☆
Xavier Dolan’s It’s Only The End Of The World is an intense, melodramatic family drama around the lunch table.
Sweet Dreams (2016)
★★★☆☆
Marco Bellochio’s Sweet Dreams is a journalist’s belated emotional coming of age as he investigates the death of his mother.