Nondescript and mundane at times, this Oscar-nominated documentary about the black community in Alabama transforms somewhat into a more interesting, free-association piece though it isn’t quite the resoundingly meaningful work of observational, diaristic cinema it thinks it is.
Ralph Fiennes is exceptional as a cardinal who must oversee the selection of a new Pope as skeletons in the closet threaten to derail the voting process, in Berger’s taut ‘mystery-thriller’ that some might feel too highly calibrated in its storytelling.
Things go terribly awry after a jewellery store heist in this visceral and gritty film that is a serious contender for the zeitgeist-iest HK crime-actioner of the ‘80s, made with the kind of masculine gusto that seems rare today.
Although its overlong slow-cinema style may alienate some audiences, the filmmakers’ control of mise-en-scene feels assured and reassuring as undocumented migrants face moral questions and exploitation eking out a painful existence in the mountains of Taiwan.
A beautifully animated French drama that focuses on the nuts and bolts of mountain scaling as a Japanese photojournalist hopes to find historical and existential clarity about the exploits of several mountain climbers.
Blending concert scenes, comedy and thriller modes, this is a largely rapturous dramatisation of the rise of the Belfast-based hip-hop group as they seek to reclaim the Irish language from the oppressive British authorities.
A brilliant idea to set a ‘warring gangs’ action film in the iconic if long-demolished Kowloon Walled City, but this comic book adaptation feels numbingly empty with its stylistic excesses a tonal mismatch with the more sobering space of marginality and exploitation.
Rankin’s sophomore feature feels like Kaurismaki meets Kiarostami as his surreal, and at times perplexing tale brings us through a hybrid Canadian-Iranian space marked by quaint shophouses and bustling highways.
Still needs another much tighter recut, this now unbanned Thai film about a cult of dog-worshipping fanatics is at times intolerable with its B-movie vibe though it unexpectedly turns into something revelatory about the meaning of ‘God’.
As highly personal a documentary as it gets about seeking for truth and justice, featuring the derring-do of the journalist-director who was sexually assaulted by a powerful man many years ago as she painstakingly attempts to put the demon to the sword.
Eternality Tan 