Huston’s Venice Silver Lion-winning costume drama focuses much more on disabled French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec than the infamous Paris nightclub that he frequently visits in this ruminative take on love and loneliness.
The Oscar-nominated documentary, Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom (2015), is on Netflix. Harrowing but essential viewing, it shows how Ukrainian youths who were mostly born during the period of post-Soviet independence galvanised their people from all walks of life to protest against the ‘oppressive’ regime, headed by a pro-Russian president, at the time (circa 2013).
Continue reading →
A mid-tier Almodovar as he weaves a story of mothers and babies against a dark national history—it doesn’t always find a sure footing in terms of tone and theme, but the indelible performances and the auteur’s knack for creating suspense out of melodrama do help.
This early Godard sees Anna Karina at her most bewitching (those soul-staring eyes that break the fourth wall!) as the auteur reinvents the ‘rom-com’ with wilful abandon and artistry.
Structured like a diptych, Hong’s work here is more meditative than usual as his protagonist tries to find the grace and psychological clarity that have eluded her all her life.
Save for the decent performances by Humphrey Bogart (his only Oscar win) and Katharine Hepburn, this journey-through-a-hostile-river adventure could have been more meandering than usual.
A romance drama that is also a comedy and an elegy, Trier’s introspective new film has an understated, layered quality—and some cinematic tricks up its sleeves— exploring what this era’s ennui among millennials might feel like.
Kristen Stewart gives a top-tier performance of quiet rage as the tormented Princess Diana in this journey down a psychological hellhole that is as formally-crafted a film as you’ll see this year.
This beloved classic epitomised the French ’60s musical, with Demy at the top of his game weaving his multitude of characters together in the delightful and colourful world he had created.
A lesser but somewhat stylishly-crafted effort by Scorsese, featuring Nicolas Cage as a burnt-out paramedic who works the graveyard shift and is haunted by the victims he couldn’t save.
