Embrace of the Serpent movie review: mild Amazonian odyssey
More intriguing in its ambitions than in it successes, which are limited, and oddly keeps its distance from the very people it wants to enlighten us about.
non-English-language
Theeb movie review: a tiny slice of the Great War, through a child’s eyes
A gorgeous, cracking adventure with a smart ring of authenticity, full of pulpy twists and perils, and with a sweetly naive but gruffly charming young hero.
Mustang movie review: the “wife factory”
Smart, perceptive, keenly observant, heartbreaking: how the world crushes girls and turns lively people into automatons merely because they are female.
Son of Saul movie review: how to remain human
Did you think you had heard all the unbearable stories about the Holocaust? You hadn’t. Hard to watch, but an essential installment of Holocaust cinema.
Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom documentary review: Occupy Kiev
This is what a revolution in the 21st century looks like. Spoiler: The power of ridicule when Facebook journalists are watching is vast.
Rams (Hrútar) movie review: brothers in farms
Exists on the spectrum between “fascinating and unclassifiably odd” and “could almost be a parody of an arthouse film except it’s too moving to be a joke.”
When Marnie Was There movie review: girls have adolescent angst too
Enchanting, startling; a rare story about a girl at a precarious age. Full of that exquisite Studio Ghibli sorcery that captures the beauty of the ordinary.
Oscar Nominated Documentary Shorts (88th Academy Awards) review
“A Girl in the River” masterfully portrays a culture that justifies killing women, its rage subsumed by a dispiriting account of how its customs are perpetuated.
Oscar Nominated Live-Action Shorts (88th Academy Awards) review
“Day One” is a wartime drama the likes of which we have not seen before, with a marvelous Layla Alizada as an interpreter with U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
A War (Krigen) movie review: the heat of battle and the cold light of day
Emotionally tense and smartly nuanced exploration of an ordinary man under extraordinary pressure; a war movie for how we have redefined war today.
