Belgian writer-director Claude Schmitz’s third feature, The Other Laurens, is a dry-humor thriller with an existential neo-noir façade. Viewers expecting a tense, philosophical slow-burn akin…
Advanced mathematics on film is often treated as a gateway to mental illness (Pi) or espionage (The Imitation Game) or in some instances both (A…
Although his name may be unfamiliar to some, Chinese director Wei Shujun has already made several feature films, including 2021’s Ripples of Life, which also…
As Catherine Breillat’s first film in a decade, Last Summer scans initially as an altogether more mannered affair for the director. Known for her sexually…
In Tiger Stripes, Amanda Nell Eu’s debut feature, a trio of twelve-year-old girls contend with the sudden and inexplicable physical changes that occur inside one…
All We Imagine as Light “This city takes time away from you,” says one of the seven disembodied voices introducing us to the wide-awake-at-night Mumbai…
Anora Following Red Rocket in 2021, Anora marks Sean Baker’s second straight feature in competition at Cannes, and this one comes with reports of packed…
Following Red Rocket in 2021, Anora marks Sean Baker’s second straight feature in competition at Cannes, and this one comes with reports of packed screenings…
Not that every filmmaker is expected to prove their unique vision upon signing their directorial debut, but French-Greek actress and dancer Ariane Labed, unfortunately, had…
Long heralded as the harbinger of snore-inducing boredom, slow cinema, in actuality, is a somewhat paradoxical replica of what film scholar Tom Gunning calls the…
The fraternal duo of Arnaud and Jean-Marie Larrieu have been making films together for around 25 years. An early featurette of theirs, Roland’s Pass (2000),…
Once upon a time, there were frightened people. They were so frightened that their imagination escaped,” says a soothing, soft, and elderly feminine voice. The…
Oh, Canada The title gives it away. Before one even begins watching Paul Schrader’s latest, the tone is effectively set by a little writerly in-joke…
If dogs run free, then what must be Must be, and that is all True love can make a blade of grass Stand up straight…
In Retreat, the debut feature from Iranian-born Ladhaki director Maisam Ali, is the sort of film one hates to be negative about. It’s made on…
Writing on Jean-Christophe Meurisse’s Bloody Oranges back in 2022, InRO’s Matt Lynch described it as a “glib little attempt at satirizing The Way We Live…
In Western countries, the dailiness in those “lesser developed” ones has long been abstracted by a dearth of artistic and cultural diffusion from one to…
Many critics’ wrap-ups from the 2023 edition of Cannes included dismissive language directed at Ken Loach’s new film competition film, The Old Oak. As is…
The Invasion Moral judgments in artwork tend to be tinged in shades of gray. This is sometimes expressed by citing Jean Renoir’s unofficial motto that…
Moral judgments in artwork tend to be tinged in shades of gray. This is sometimes expressed by citing Jean Renoir’s unofficial motto that “everyone has…
The Shameless feels very much like an art-sploitation entry from the mid-’90s, when directors thought that a frank depiction of lesbian desire, in and of…