Cinema Sabaya, Israel’s Oscar submission this year, confronts the political in a manner both predictable and insidious. Let’s address the latter accusation first, as…
Step back while reading Annie Ernaux’s autobiographical opus The Years, and you will find yourself pausing a survey of a collection of photographs. These…
Utama is undeniably one of the year’s most gorgeous works of image-making, but its narrative and thematic expressions are less consistently impressive. Over the past…
Given its subject matter, Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power proves ironically reductive a thesis on art and sexual politics. While made largely in response to the #MeToo…
Casablanca Beats boasts some technical rap prowess, but its narrative fails to develop any depth and the film suffers from a banal and maudlin ending. …
It can sometimes feel that Hold Me Tight coasts by on mood alone, but Amalric maximizes that mode, orchestrating his film’s disorienting tone with…
Murina’s second half almost helps the film realize its pursuit of unsettling inquiry, but outside of its opening and closing shots, there’s too little…
Neptune Frost lacks for coherence, but remains an oddity worth seeking out on the strength of its formal expressions and bold exploration of ideas.…
Fiddler’s Journey isn’t much more substantive than your average love letter doc, and suffers from an ill-conceived late-film detour. Daniel Raim’s chronicling of the pre-production…
Real-life subtext melds effortlessly with easy, endearing comedy in Panah Panahi’s Hit the Road. Sam Levinson, Jaden Smith, Jake Gyllenhaal, Maya Hawke, and Bryce Dallas…
Ahed’s Knee is an expressionistic work of subjective ruptures and discontinuities that attempts to give complete satisfaction to human reason. If Nadav Lapid is a…
Fabian bears perhaps a thin thesis, but Graf remains a sly evangelist for and director of the dignity of disorder. Early on in Fabian:…
Brighton 4th is but the latest example of festival-facing cinema slipping into anonymity under the weight of overly familiarly elements and arcs. There’s a scene…
Dumont’s recent shift into outright absurdity and his exuberant mistrust of form is most thrillingly realized in France, and particularly in Seydoux’s remarkable performance.…
Wife of a Spy can be too reserved in stretches, but is ultimately fully invigorated by its monumental conclusion. Though over three decades into…
Never Gonna Snow Again harnesses is an oddball, observational film that manages to comment on much without veering into obviousness. Premiering at the 2020 Venice…
Can You Bring It is a sumptuous, intelligent work about the beauty and infinity of the creative process. Following the evolution of the titular…
There is No Evil is frequently, starkly poignant, but it’s successes are somewhat mitigated by a lack of culminating cohesion. Mohammad Rasoulof wasn’t present at…