Crafted with operatic scale and striving for an epic-ness that its subject matter necessitates, but ultimately feels overdrawn to work powerfully.
Tag / 2016
Road to Mandalay, The (2016)
An excellent low-key drama about the perils of working in a foreign country as an illegal immigrant, directed with assurance and confident pacing by rising filmmaker Midi Z.
Julieta (2016)
A minor mystery-esque work by Almodovar, spellbinding and sensually-crafted at times, but marred by a weak denouement.
Your Name (2016)
Shinkai’s breathtaking romance anime is imbued with a modern sensibility as it takes on conceptual themes of time travel, apocalyptic disaster and body swapping with effortless aplomb.
Lost City of Z, The (2016)
A remarkably-realized film about the great British explorer Col. Percival Fawcett, yet it is James Gray’s patience with pacing that is most rewarding, with the film unfolding like a traditional biopic in the mould of an inspired tone poem on obsession and mystery.
Frantz (2016)
An elegiac if delicately-directed film by Ozon about lies, truths and the aftermath of war affecting the lives of those that continue to live.
Moonlight (2016)
There’s a niggling feeling that Jenkins’ film may have been over-hyped, but there are poetic moments of exquisite beauty and melancholy in this focused character study about the coming-of-age of a black gay man.
