More political than it appears to be, Sora’s first narrative feature explores the punitive impact of heightened school surveillance as several students rebel against oppression in an increasingly destabilised Japanese society.
A soft-hearted, if sometimes amusing, elegy about love in all forms, be it unrequited, unconditional or burgeoning, as several students navigate a school ‘Talentime’ show and family problems in Yasmin Ahmad’s sincerely-made final feature.
Things go dreadfully south during a wild night in a Louisiana juke joint in Coogler’s most original work yet, marked by patient setups, foreshadowing, and playful blending of genres in this fervent, intoxicating music-horror.
An exquisite and meditative biopic about a Japanese tea master who became influential with the shoguns during the 16th century as Teshigahara conflates the personal with the political in a beguiling way.
Seduction and intimacy seem to be desirable and repulsive at the same time in this key work of the Greek Weird Wave as the greyish, emotionless world of a young woman and her dying father is depicted with eccentricity.
At times amusing and heartfelt, this gentle and comforting Sundance documentary sees local government agents tasked with surveying the Bhutanese on their ‘Happiness Index’.
An African hippo is flown to South America in this thoughtful allegory of forced capture, exploitation and fearmongering, with its nebulous cinematic form and unconventional ‘myth-telling’ likely to impress adventurous cinephiles.
Backed by a sublime piano score by Ryuichi Sakamoto, this Murakami adaptation about an older man with chronic loneliness and his fashion-obsessed wife lulls viewers into a quiet trance.
Dutt’s best-known work is a musical-drama with sweeping character arcs as a struggling poet is outcast and exploited by society, leading him into a downward spiral towards oblivion.
Nothing special from a storytelling standpoint, but its tick-the-boxes sincerity gives this Bob Dylan biopic the necessary foundation for a trio of exceptional Oscar-nominated performances from Timothee Chalamet, Monica Barbaro and Edward Norton.
Eternality Tan 