Pieles (2017)
★★☆☆☆
A rhapsody in pink and purple pastels, Eduardo Casanova’s episodic debut Pieles doesn’t quite have the smarts to match its looks.
Genre
Have A Nice Day (2017)
★★★☆☆
Sleek in its industrial animation, Jian Liu’s Have A Nice Day makes up for a lack of substance with style.
Moonlight (2016)
★★★★☆
Moonlight is a very different gay coming-of-age movie by Barry Jenkins and it will break your heart.
Hidden Figures (2016)
★★★★☆
In Hidden Figures Theodore Melfi reveals the hitherto hidden story of the African American women maths geniuses who got America to the moon.
The Bar (2017)
★★★☆☆
Returning to the horror-comedy genre of his early films, Álex de la Iglesia’s The Bar uncovers Spanish society at a frightening pace.
Call Me By Your Name (2017)
★★★★☆
A delightfully nostalgic and evocative portrait of young love, Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name has all of the pleasure and only some of the pain.
Festival Review: God’s Own Country (2017)
★★★☆☆
A gay romance set high in the Yorkshire moors, Francis Lee’s God’s Own Country is a no-nonsense evocation of hard-won life in the country.
Beuys (2017)
★★★☆☆
A portrait of the artist as a revolutionary thinker, Andres Veiel’s documentary Beuys is a simple but elegant and educational bio-doc.
Mr Long (2017)
★★☆☆☆
Rehabilitating the hitman with Japanese kindness, Sabu’s Mr Long flickers between moments of splendour, kitsch and sentimentality.
The Other Side of Hope (2017)
★★★★☆
Offering a warm welcome to refugees in gloomy Finland, Aki Kaurismäki’s The Other Side of Hope is one of the director’s lightest and brightest.
The Queen of Spain (2017)
★☆☆☆☆
The story of a Hollywood production filming in Franco’s Spain, Fernando Trueba’s The Queen of Spain offers entertainment with no respite.
The Party (2017)
★★★★☆
With a whipcracking script and a stellar cast, Sally Potter’sThe Party is an uproarious comedy with a nostalgic whiff.
1945 (2017)
★★★★☆
A more sobre companion piece to Es war einmal in Deutschland…, Török Ferenc’s1945 offers a new perspective on the horrors of war.
Le jeune Karl Marx (2017)
★★☆☆☆
Filmed in French, German and English, Raoul Peck’s Le jeune Karl Marx is an erudite rendition of Marx’s journey to Das Kapital.