Suk Suk – Berlinale 2020 Review Rhys Handley February 24, 2020 Reviews Pak (Tai Bo) is a taxi driver entering his twilight years yet still providing for his family. A long-closeted gay man, he spends his lunch breaks cruising in parks and public bathrooms. When he meets retiree...
The Salt of Tears – Berlinale 2020 Review Carmen Paddock February 23, 2020 Reviews The least believable part of Philippe Garrel’s latest film is that anyone involved has ever been in a relationship. The Salt of Tears follows Luc, a young carpentry student moving from the countryside to...
Time to Hunt – Berlinale 2020 Review Carmen Paddock February 23, 2020 Reviews There is a scene just before the halfway point in Time To Hunt, Yoon Sung-hyun’s latest heist horror, that signals a seismic shift in the film’s rulebook. While not necessarily a twist by virtue of the...
Hidden Away – Berlinale 2020 Review Carmen Paddock February 23, 2020 Reviews Biopics are tricky; there is a balance to strike between comprehensively covering the subject's entire life and picking a dramatically satisfying theme and tone. Hidden Away reaches for the former but brings...
Persian Lessons – Berlinale 2020 Review Carmen Paddock February 22, 2020 Reviews Vadim Perelman’s Holocaust drama, inspired by true events, begins with its strongest sequence. As Gilles (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart) is transported alongside fellow Jews to an undisclosed location, he ends up...
In Deep Sleep – Berlinale 2020 Review Carmen Paddock February 22, 2020 Reviews Sleep and death are two sides of the same coin in Maria Ignatenko’s slow-burning psychological drama. Sleep of any kind eludes Victor (Vadik Korlyov), who when the film opens is on trial for the murder of...
This is Not Berlin – Filmfest München 2019 Review Josefine Algieri July 4, 2019 Reviews Mexico City, 1986: the country is swept up in FIFA World Cup fever, and tensions are running high. Teenage schoolboys fight each other, and the violence of it makes Carlos (Xabiani Ponce De Leon) faint....
Marighella – Berlinale 2019 Review Rhys Handley February 23, 2019 Reviews Democracy only returned to Brazil in 1989, but the threat of another backslide into authoritarianism is dangerously imminent today. Far-right agitator Jair Bolsonaro was elected president in January 2019 and...
Amazing Grace – Berlinale 2019 Review Josefine Algieri February 16, 2019 Reviews It’s a rare thing to see footage from times long past resurface in a feature length film, but Amazing Grace is one such case: filmed in 1971 by none other than Sydney Pollack, it was meant to be a...
Synonymes – Berlinale 2019 Review Carmen Paddock February 16, 2019 Reviews Many films have explored the physical, mental, and emotional toll of starting a new life – whether by choice or force – in a foreign country. Joining this particular brand of coming-of-age story is...
Woo Sang – Berlinale 2019 review Rhys Handley February 16, 2019 Reviews The opening line of Woo Sang must be one of the boldest in recent memory. As the camera sweeps ominously across a modern cityscape, narrator and grieving father Yoo Joong-sik (Sul Kyung-gu) drops his...
What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael – Berlinale 2019 Review Josefine Algieri February 16, 2019 Reviews “I was lucky enough to be able to write about movies in a way that people were willing to pay for,” Pauline Kael says in the opening of What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael when asked why she decided to...
Delphine and Carole – Berlinale 2019 Review Josefine Algieri February 16, 2019 Reviews Les insoumuses – the disobedient muses: actress Delphine Seyrig and filmmaker Carole Roussopoulos. Coming together in the early 1970s, they formed a collective focusing on feminist issues and film. They...
We Are Little Zombies – Berlinale 2019 Review Stephanie Watts February 16, 2019 Reviews What would you do if you were a 10-year-old orphan in Japan? Form a rock band with your three orphan friends and become a pop sensation, of course. And in We Are Little Zombies, Makoto Nagahisa’s debut...
Elisa y Marcela – Berlinale 2019 Review Stephanie Watts February 16, 2019 Reviews In Elisa y Marcela, director Isabel Coixet brings a tender story of love and desperation in a time of intolerance to the big screen (and small, with the film being distributed by Netflix). At times less...