“A gangster’s ex-girlfriend struggles to adapt to life and find her way in the new "capitalist" China after five years in prison, in the latest from Festival favourite Jia Zhang-ke. More than any filmmaker of his generation, Jia Zhang-ke has crafted a body of work that holds a mirror to contemporary China in all its [...]
Shoplifters
Jan Smacka2019-05-03T15:58:19+00:00“The latest from Japanese master Hirokazu Kore-eda (Nobody Knows) begins with the mischief and intrigue of a heist movie, but Shoplifters is much more. Osamu (Lily Franky), a middle-aged man, and Shota (Kairi Jyo), a young boy, walk into a grocery store. They play it cool, not speaking but, rather, signalling to each other with [...]
A Beautiful Day
Jan Smacka2018-08-16T16:41:41+00:00“The film drop-kicks you into a cosmos of pain, depravity and blunt-force trauma with only the faintest flickers of light at the end of the tunnel. It’s not an experience to relish, exactly, but it’s still one that’s fully capable of blowing you away. The Scottish director begins this, her first film since We Need [...]
The Killing of a Sacred Deer
Jan Smacka2018-08-17T09:40:39+00:00“In ancient Greece, King Agamemnon learned this the hard way, invoking the wrath of the gods for killing one of Artemis’ beloved deer, for which he was obliged to sacrifice his own daughter, Iphigenia. The obvious lesson: Don’t kill deer. But what if the deed is already done? That’s the premise of Dogtooth director Yorgos [...]
About Love
Jan Smacka2018-08-17T12:09:35+00:00“(...) The film is permeated with explorations of the ever-popular theme of love, and features a plethora of Russian movie stars, including Renata Litvinova, Vladimir Mashkov, Mikhail Efremov, and Evgenii Tsyganov. “About Love” preserves Melikian’s playful visual and narrative style, defies rigid genre prescriptions, and ultimately takes up the same questions as her earlier feature [...]
Pasolini
Nikola Mirza2017-05-19T14:29:33+00:00“Willem Dafoe is perfectly cast in Abel Ferrara’s extraordinary portrait of Pier Paolo Pasolini's final 24 hours. `To scandalise is a right; to be scandalised is a pleasure’, says Pier Paolo Pasolini (Willem Dafoe) in the opening scene of Abel Ferrara’s “Pasolini”. Dafoe’s voice is measured, but his eyes are wide, as if they’re trying [...]