Festival Review: Madame Courage (2015)
★★★☆☆
Staging a battle of the sexes in Algiers, Merzak Allouache’s Madame Courage reveals a desperate injustice pervading male and female relationships.
London Film Festival
Festival Review: He Named Me Malala (2015)
★★★☆☆
After An Inconvenient Truth, Davis Guggenheim’s He Named Me Malala brings Malala Yousafzai’s story to the masses. Just a little too easily.
Festival Review: Beasts Of No Nation (2015)
★★★☆☆
A violent exploration of civil war in West Africa, Cary Joji Fukunaga’s Beasts Of No Nation is a powerful portrait of a continent thrown into darkness.
Festival Review: Der Nachtmahr (2015)
★★☆☆☆
A German horror film of Berlin clubs and imaginary creatures, Akiz’s Der Nachtmahr is a pulsating delirium of colourful and haunting images.
Festival Review: A Guy From Fenyang (2014)
★★★☆☆
Uncovering the life and works of Jia Zhangke in his home city, Walter Salles’ A Guy From Fenyang reveals the metropolis behind the man.
Festival Review: Suffragette (2015)
★★★☆☆
Celebrating nearly a century of women’s right to vote, Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette is an important and inspirational film on democracy in action.
Festival Review: Mountains May Depart (2015)
★★☆☆☆
A triptych of melancholy Chinese stories, Jia Zhangke’sMountains May Depart builds an awkward narrative of nostalgia – past, present and future.
A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014)
★★★☆☆
An Iranian skateboarding vampire movie, Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night is a quirky, stylish addition to the genre.
Phoenix (2014)
★★★★☆
In war-damaged Berlin a disfigured concentration camp survivor strives to rediscover her identity as she searches for the husband who may have betrayed her.
The Salvation (2014)
★★☆☆☆
A Danish Western with the magnetic Mads Mikkelsen, Kristian Levring’s The Salvation is gorgeous to look at but as hollow as a Ten-gallon hat.
Something Must Break / Nånting måste gå sönder (2014)
★★★☆☆
With a transgender teen searching for her true self, Ester Martin Bergsmark’s Something Must Break lends a poetic look at the unbecoming state of becoming.
The Face Of An Angel (2014)
★★★☆☆
A self-referential odyssey of filmmaking and its ethics, Michael Winterbottom’s The Face Of An Angel loses its way in a labyrinth of satire and horror.
Wild Tales / Relatos Salvajes (2014)
★★★★☆
Crazy, caustic, and ingeniously clever, Damián Szifrón’s Wild Tales is an excellent Argentine selection box of intricate short stories.
Mommy (2014)
★★★★☆
A violent, visual explosion of fiercely maternal love and insuppressible energy, Xavier Dolan’s Mommy reveals a love that will surely tear us apart.