A father, with son in tow, follows a group of ravers to find his missing daughter in the dusty desert of North Africa, in Laxe’s stunning, foreboding road movie about faith and despair, marked by thumping beats, shuffling bodies, and bellowing trucks.
A French organic farming couple doesn’t want to sell their land to a wind turbine eco-company, incurring the wrath of the Spanish locals, as Sorogoyen’s slow-burning thriller reveals the psychological pressures of intimidation and violence.
Serra’s unflinching, observational documentary plants its camera with sniper-like focus on the bloody ritual of bullfighting, as static long takes and dynamic close-ups capture a lonely matador risking his life, afternoon after afternoon, to end another.
A departure from his earlier ‘hyperlink’ films, Inarritu’s soul-searching work features Cannes Best Actor winner Javier Bardem, as a story about one man’s relationship with his community, family and existential self unfolds rewardingly.
Erice’s allegorical work puts you in a trance-like spell with its picturesque cinematography and disquieting mood setting as a child is haunted by James Whale’s ‘Frankenstein’ in 1940s rural Spain.
Almodovar’s first English-language feature doesn’t quite strike gold, but Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore give riveting performances as two friends who haven’t seen each other for a long time, exploring themes of mortality and morality.
One of the holy grails of world cinema, there is an elusive, mythic halo cast over Erice’s ‘incomplete’ film, a memory piece about a daughter’s melancholy reflection of her secretive father during her post-Spanish Civil War days of childhood.
Erice is back after 31 years with a compelling but somewhat unconvincing work that is part mystery, part love letter to cinema, and a meditation on mortality, old age and the passing of time, as an unresolved case of a missing actor is reopened after many decades.
The sheer human will to survive is depicted in this unimaginably true story that is told viscerally and sensitively, based on the tragic Andes flight disaster of 1972.
A great Spanish film about childhood, death and painful memories, featuring an exceptional performance by the bright-eyed if soulful Ana Torrent, with director Saura deftly navigating different planes of temporal and psychological realities.
Eternality Tan 