Tagged Berlinale

As befitting its title, the characters with which Lone Scherfig populates The Kindness of Strangers prove the shining emotional heart of the drama. Getting them all together takes some contrivance, not to...

Despite its daring combination of the aesthetic of found footage movies with a proud 00s cinema tradition, the body swap comedy, High Fantasy feels like a missed opportunity. For the most part the comedic...

Steven Soderbergh takes a pulpy turn in his latest lo-fi thriller Unsane, which follows a woman who unwittingly ends up in a psychiatric hospital, where she comes into contact with her stalker from whom...

The documentaries on display at Berlinale this year all have had an intimate, personal connection between the filmmaker and subject matter, and The Son is no different. Alexander Abaturov’s piece on the...

This review was originally published as part of our Berlin International Film Festival coverage on 24/02/2018. Beguiling and bewildering from the very opening, in which lead character Madeline is shown to...

One early scene of The Real Estate hints at promise, as our lead Nojet prepares to go door to door and speak to her new tenants. Léonore Ekstrand is given room to breathe, and she attempts to establish some...

The choice to shoot in black and white stems from Lebeck’s original photography of Romy Schneider, but feels like a natural fit for 3 Days in Quiberon; Schneider has intentionally isolated herself in...

To many, U - July 22 should not exist. Putting aside that debate for a moment, the skill at play in 22 is certainly worthy of praise: Erik Poppe and DoP Martin Otterbeck capture the 72-minute attack in a...

“Why does one run towards ruin?” As Oscar Wilde, Rupert Everett is a self-indulgent falling star, a whimsical washout whining and wining his way towards the grave. Befitting its star there is mirth among...

After making waves last year in Paul Verhoeven’s revenge thriller Elle, Isabelle Huppert once again finds herself the headliner in a psychological thriller, this time as the brusque femme fatale Eva. As you...

Charming and inconsequential, The Bookshop perfectly evokes the sensation of losing yourself in a good book. Nothing too heavy – more of a summer read than daunting prose – we are led stepping into its...

In his directorial debut, Idris Elba brings his effortless sense of cool behind the camera; Yardie is embodied with his crackling energy as a performer, despite his staying well behind the frame....

A conventional thriller in an unconventional setting, Black 47 lays the bleakness on pretty thick to establish the woeful world in which we find ourselves. War, famine, greed, wrath – the seven sins, the...

Movies don’t have to mimic their settings. Space is pretty desolate, but most films featuring the final frontier don’t waste half their running time slowly inching through the black. When it comes to...

This was originally reviewed on 16/02/17 as part of the Berlinale. While making comparisons is nearly always reductive, Call Me by Your Name feels like Brokeback Mountain via Richard Linklater – which...