For better or worse, this is possibly the director’s most accessible film to date, lacking the wondrous mysticism of his previous works, yet at the same time it feels more intimate as a personal elegy.
Kiarostami shoots the close-ups of more than a hundred actresses as they watch a theatrical presentation unfold in this conceptually bold but ultimately uninvolving treatise on the nature of spectatorship.
A delightful Rohmer omnibus as four short films featuring the two titular characters—one a countryside girl, the other a city girl—give us an intellectual if light-hearted take on how independent women can thrive in a manipulative society.
One of the defining highlights of the New French Extremity canon, Noe’s reverse-chronological film about the repugnant extremes of toxic masculinity belies the fact that it is not just an incredible work of formal brilliance but a deeply human treatise on the permanence of action and consequence.
Way too sprawling and loosely-episodic to work effectively, the Portuguese auteur nevertheless gives us a rather cerebral docu-fictive, music-infused meta-film centering on the vibrancy and eccentricity of a small town blessed with a strong festive spirit.
Chabrol was no stranger to Hitchcockian mystery-dramas and this is one of his better outings centering on the masks that people wear to hide their true selves.
One of the finest arthouse films of the 2010s decade – enigmatic, bewildering, philosophical and a cinematic experience unlike any other.
Ruiz’s stylish, surreal visual style here is breathtaking at times, but the film is challenging to get into because of its nebulous storytelling.
Three hours fly by in Hamaguchi’s gentle Cannes Best Screenplay winner—a highly-layered and nuanced take on the unresolved regrets and guilt that stay deep within us and the affordances of performance art and unlikely acquaintance as catharsis.
Bewildering yet contemplative in true Apichatpong Weerasethakul style, this is a challenging work of art.
