Modest but effective, and unexpectedly moving, this documentary on Taylor Swift gives us the broad strokes of a human being who is always trying to prove herself through her music artistry and compassion for others.
Disturbing if politically urgent, Franco takes class warfare to its violent extreme in this Mexican treatise on the consequences of an imagined collapse of civilised society, where the rich and powerful face the wrath of the working-class, and military autocracy becomes the answer to anarchy.
Interesting and meditative in its treatment of the metaphysical in the real world, this Polish work, however, is vague about what it wants to say as a mysterious Ukrainian massage therapist works his charm on a gated community of oddball residents.
Under Petzold’s assured hands, this modern interpretation of the Undine myth mostly works and benefits most from the sublime performances of Paula Beer and Franz Rogowski.
Possibly the finest from Jia in recent years, this unexpectedly affecting documentary remarkably paints a portrait of China in the second half of the 20th century through the diverse oral histories of renowned literary figures.
Ann Hui’s latest period piece has a slow-burning elegance, but despite the array of world-class talents involved—Christopher Doyle, Ryuichi Sakamoto and the late Emi Wada—and adapted from an Eileen Chang text no less, it feels too thematically shallow to work.
Kawase’s naturalistic and graceful filmmaking is there for all to see, but she doesn’t quite pull off successfully an oddly-structured work about the sometimes fateful circumstances surrounding mothers and babies.
Critics have called this a cine-symposium, and rightly so as Puiu’s latest is an ultra-dense and ultra-slow exercise that sees five individuals debate over their stubborn—and at times arrogant—views on religion, morality and mortality in thought-provoking but dullish fashion.
Watching and listening to farm animals can be surprisingly cinematic in this immersive dialogue-free new documentary by Kossakovsky that seems to exist outside of time, even as it startlingly reminds us that these animals have fates they can’t control.
This entertaining Kenyan documentary about a political activist-cum-family man running for election is tightly-constructed and highly-illuminating as it explores how politics is synonymous with corruption and violence, but also the desire for change.
Eternality Tan 