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White Noise – Review

This film was previously reviewed in September 2022 as part of our Venice Film Festival coverage. Don DeLillo’s novel White Noise (1985) depicts an era where the relative security of Western middle class...
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Parallel Mothers – Review

This film was previously reviewed in September 2021 as part of our Venice Film Festival coverage. Parallel Mothers is a twisting tale of two single mothers, Janis (Penélope Cruz) and Ana (Milena Smit),...
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The Lost Daughter – Review

This film was previously reviewed in September 2021 as part of our Venice Film Festival coverage. Directing your debut feature as an established actor has its pros and cons. You can call in favours to land...
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The Card Counter – Review

This film was previously reviewed in September 2021 as part of our coverage for Venice Film Festival. The Card Counter marks a highly anticipated return for Paul Schrader, after his career-best First...
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Spencer – Review

This film was previously reviewed in September 2021 as part of our Venice Film Festival coverage. Pablo Larraín’s Princess Diana biopic, Spencer, gets about as far away from a cradle-to-grave template as...
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Dune – Review

This film was previously reviewed in September 2021 as part of our Venice Film Festival coverage. Much has been made of Denis Villeneuve’s crusade for the physical institution of cinema but one thing is...
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The Last Duel – Review

This film was previously reviewed in September 2021 as part of our Venice Film Festival coverage. The Last Duel, Ridley Scott’s latest men-with-swords epic, is a medieval courtly tale for the #MeToo...
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Land of Dreams – Venice 2021 Review

Land of Dreams, Shirin Neshat and Shoja Azari’s eccentric political satire set in a dust-ridden United States where censuses collect dream data, is a profoundly American film – and a profoundly Iranian...
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The Falls – Venice 2021 Review

There are sure to be countless Covid films tackling the biggest global disruption of our lifetimes, and The Falls takes an interesting approach, relegating this cataclysm to a sub-plot. We begin in Taipei,...
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The Inner Cage – Venice 2021 Review

The Inner Cage’s rural Sardinian prison is due to be shut down, but an administrative hiccup forces a skeleton staff to remain and guard a dozen prisoners who can’t be moved elsewhere yet. Every frame...
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Atlantide – Venice 2021 Review

Watching Atlantide at the Venice Film Festival, in the heart of the Venice Lagoon, is a sobering experience. Gone are the hordes of tourists and expensive film stars, gone are the gondolas and fridge magnets...
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The Hand of God – Venice 2021 Review

The Hand of God is Paolo Sorrentino’s most personal film yet, re-telling key events of his youth in Naples, including the tragic moment that left him orphaned. His films have always had an air of melancholy,...
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Babyteeth – Review

This film was previously reviewed in September 2019 as part of our Venice Film Festival coverage. It’s hard to avoid the twin evils of mawkishness and misery when making a film about cancer, but Shannon...
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The House by the Sea – Review

This review was originally published as part of our Venice Film Festival coverage on 03/09/2017. Self-indulgent, glacially slow, and painfully boring, Robert Guédiguian’s The House by the Sea is...