Tagged london film festival 2015

A pulpy, old-fashioned cat-and-mouse thriller, Desierto pulls no punches - but offers few surprises - as it exhaustedly staggers towards its high-octane conclusion. Desierto makes no bones about what it...

Take a look at that still up there. If it takes your fancy, then the ever-prolific Takashi Miike's latest, Yakuza Apocalypse, is probably for you. If not, turn back now. Gloriously trashy, Yakuza...

Simultaneously philosophical, sombre and pretentious, yet playful, fun and firmly tongue-in-cheek, Francofonia employs a whimsical and varied approach - not unlike that of Chilean master Patricio Guzmán - to...

A promising plot collapses into a completely shapeless and tedious film beefed up to feature length by the inclusion of a huge amount of irrelevant mundane detail, such as an odd obsession with the...

Queen of Earth's opening could be deleted footage from Perry’s Listen Up Philip, but the quality of this follow-up's script and performances soon distracts from the repetition. Moss and Waterston offer...

From its striking opening A Perfect Day is grubby and real, filled with weathered props and beautiful aerial shots of the suffering landscape. Though it has a well-defined style – established in part by...

Director Apichatpong Weerasethakul is best known for his beautiful, strange, but patience-testing films - Cemetery of Splendour is mainly just one of these, and unfortunately it's the last one. Never...

The uplifting and humanistic Frame by Frame gives us some admirable insight into the practitioners behind the new-found journalistic freedom in a post-Taliban Afghanistan. Perhaps most importantly, it...

Detailing the turbulent production of Steve McQueen's ill-fated passion project Le Mans, Steve McQueen is a fascinating and entertaining documentary which offers plenty of interesting facts and tidbits, as...

It turns out the end of the world looks pretty similar no matter what language it’s happening in. This Norwegian disaster movie benefits from its local focus, but ultimately it’s plagued by the same flaws...

Brooklyn is a beautiful film, in both presentation, with its lush cinematography, and delicate execution.  It’s an intimate tale of one girl’s struggle to find the life she wishes to lead – but told...

A tale of a youth seeking abortion, even in Vietnam, borders on the prosaic - yet Diep's sensual approach allows it to become a springboard for more interesting facets. The exploration of a youth with no...

Calm, rational and dignified all while shining light through a black hole. To navigate a topic such as the Holocaust with two children of Nazi generals provides a strong hook. It'd be easy to sensationalise,...

Ably supported by a heavyweight cast, superior acting reigns supreme throughout this engrossing enough story. Black Mass sees Johnny Depp exhibit a predictably excellent transformation into cold-eyed...

Very Big Shot is a glorious surprise. What begins as a gangster drama twists itself into an uproarious cine-literate comedy. Though the plot begs comparisons to Affleck’s Argo, Chaaya takes himself much...