Narrative cinema is a broad medium with seemingly endless potential for disrupting common tropes, experimenting with form, and subverting audience expectations. That said, the further a filmmaker strays from the accepted mainstream the more challenging their work will become for … Continue reading REVIEW: A Korean in Paris (2015)
Comedy hit Antoinette in the Cévennes was one of the most popular films at this year’s Alliance Française French Film Festival. Thanks to Madman Entertainment, Caroline Vignal’s wonderful misadventure of hiking with a donkey and chasing after love is now … Continue reading REVIEW: Antoinette in the Cévennes (2020)
It begins, oddly enough, with Gary Numan. His 1980 rendition of Erik Satie’s “Trois Gymnopédies” accompanies a stark shot of a snowfield from above. In stumbles a hysterical young woman, barely able to stand. When she falls, she convulses on … Continue reading “Mummy, there are bugs in here” | Climax (2018)
There will always be a place in the hearts – and stomachs – of moviegoers for films about food. Whether it is an animated film like Ratatouille or a cult favourite like Tampopo, films about food seem to inspire all kinds of … Continue reading REVIEW: Délicieux (2021)
Three Paris police officers have their morality sorely tested in Anne Fontaine’s considered and powerful drama Night Shift (aka Police). Virginie (Viriginie Efira) has fallen pregnant to a fellow officer, and is planning for an abortion. The officer in question, Aristide (Omar Sy) … Continue reading REVIEW: Night Shift (2020)
Miss is simply glorious. It is a French mainstream comedy-drama about a young person’s quest to win the Miss France beauty pageant. It does everything right. It finds comedy in characters and situations and not in mocking identities. It carries an … Continue reading REVIEW: Miss (2020)
Isabelle Huppert is easily one of the world’s most accomplished and talented actors. She is also one of its most versatile, having spread her long career across films as varied as French prestige dramas, Hollywood westerns, and even the South … Continue reading REVIEW: The Godmother (2020)
A hot Mediterranean sun blazes down on a violent gang of thieves in hiding in Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s self-consciously stylish crime thriller Let the Corpses Tan. Based on a pulp novel and primarily shot on location in Corsica, it is … Continue reading REVIEW: Let the Corpses Tan (2017)
Political cartoonist Aurel (Aurélien Froment) makes his feature directing debut with this heartfelt and political animation set in a 1939 concentration camp. Not a German one, however: when half a million Spanish refugees fled across the French border to escape … Continue reading REVIEW: Josep (2020)
French cinema’s enfant terrible Gaspar Noé has returned. In typical Noé fashion, he comes on the back of a playful subversion of expectations; not necessarily ours – I suspect all of his fans and foes anticipate the sensory assaults to which … Continue reading REVIEW: Lux Æterna (2019)
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