In Louder Than Bombs, Isabelle Reed (Isabelle Huppert) was a world-renowned war photographer who risked her life in pursuit of an endless string of perfect shots. She didn’t always come out of the war zone unscathed, but she always came out. It’s ironic, then, that despite surviving countless dangers around the globe, she wound up the lone fatality of a single-vehicle car crash in a cozy New York suburb. Three years later, a retrospective of her work is being organized, and her widowed husband Gene (Gabriel Byrne) has been tapped to display his wife’s photographs; he enlists the help of his grown son Jonah (Jesse Eisenberg).

Complicating matters is a New York Times piece set to be written in advance of the showing by Isabelle’s former colleague, war reporter Richard Weissman (David Strathairn). The piece will reveal that Isabelle’s car accident was no accident at all, but rather a suicide, something Gene is fully aware of. Not only would Gene prefer to keep a more positive memory of his wife at the forefront of the celebration in her honor, he would rather his younger son, the teenaged Conrad (Devin Druid), not know the truth about his mother’s death.

Louder Than Bombs, the first English-speaking film from Norwegian director and co-writer Joachim Trier, sets itself up to be a significant melodrama. All of the pieces are there and ready to be played.

There is Gene, the widower and father of two who, thanks to the retrospective being organized in his wife’s memory, must do more than face life’s small daily reminders of a love lost—he must immerse himself in the life she lived. He must look at every photograph she took and know that he’s seeing her life, a life she spent far away from her family, through her eyes. This takes its toll on Gene, which in turn takes its toll on how he handles his relationship with Hannah (Amy Ryan), his coworker and lover.

Next is Jonah, who is a lot like the old man and not just because they’re both teachers. When Jonah is faced with an event of overwhelming emotional magnitude, he also makes poor choices. In this instance, his wife Amy (Megan Ketch) has just given birth to their first child, but when the frazzled new dad scours the hospital halls for a vending machine, he runs into an old girlfriend. Their hug lasts almost as long as the lies he tells.

Conrad, whose life is challenging enough as a teenager without a mother, has all but disconnected himself emotionally from his father, opting to live in a world of loud music and online gaming. He’s awkward and introverted and everything one would expect from a 14-year-old in his situation, but he’s also undaunted in his secret love for his classmate crush, the cheerleader Melanie (Ruby Jerins).

Even Richard, the war correspondent, brings more to the story than just the byline on the revelatory posthumous profile of the revered photographer, wife, and mother.

Again, all of the melodramatic pieces are there, but much to his credit, Trier never plays those pieces the way most would expect them to be played. Instead, the filmmaker lets his characters progress through subtle developments that require the viewer to stay keenly attuned to the little things they say and do, rather than waiting for the next bombastic outburst to occur. A lot of that character progression is negative, but it’s genuine, and it’s fueled by the fatal flaws the trio shares—a wicked combination of denial, deceit, and dreadful communication. Watching them fool themselves and others isn’t like watching people spiral out of control and perish in a fiery crash. It’s more like watching people slowly dissolve. Only Conrad, despite (or perhaps because of) his youth, offers a glimmer of hope with his unflappable crush on Melanie and his refusal to be anything but the person he is. Husbands, fathers, and sons make poor choices that carry with them the potential for irrevocable consequences, and yet just like in real life, they can’t stop making those choices; it’s in their nature.

And what about Isabelle? She appears in flashback and in dreams, but she is more mystery than matriarch. Yes, she was a loving mother and wife, as well as a successful war photographer, but beyond that (and beyond the suggestion of depression), little else is known about her. This is a terrific move by Trier, because it maintains a sense of wonder about who this woman was and why she meant what she meant to the men in her life. To explain more would have done a disservice to the character. In the role, Huppert is mesmerizing, and Trier knows how to capture the best of her, including a long, lingering, dialogue-free close-up of Huppert as she stares down the camera, leaving you wondering what she is thinking about and hoping you’ll have the chance to learn.

The rest of the cast is excellent, anchored by an amazing performance by relative newcomer Druid as Conrad Reed. Byrne and Eisenberg may have (combined) decades more experience than Druid, but they need him to be great more than he needs them to be great, and he delivers.

Louder Than Bombs is a wrenching tale about the criticality of communication and the collateral damage of deceit in the wake of significant loss. The film has barely a false note in it, hardly a moment when a character says or does something that demands to be challenged, and only the ending left me disappointed as ringing somewhat hollow. Still, despite the questionable destination of the tale, the journey is completely worth it.

Crass, crude, foul-mouthed comedies have been all the rage at the movies for some time now, with the trendiest comedians from any given year dropping F-bombs, and spouting off rapid-fire fraternity jokes in their (almost always nudity-obsessed) star vehicles. Wet Hot American Summer and The State co-creator Michael Showalter‘s latest offering, Hello, My Name Is Doris, is the perfect antidote to the unending strain of Apatow offshoots: It balances classy, screwball comedy, bone-deep drama, and old-fashioned romance with the finesse of an Olympic gymnast. For once, it’s a rom-com with aims of enchanting and disarming us rather than grossing us out of our minds.

The film’s greatest boon is its star, Sally Field, an actor of age who puts on a performance so range-y, powerful and tender that it all but wipes today’s young, sparkling starlets from memory. She plays Doris, a sixtysomething recluse who’s lived in her mother’s cluttered house in Staten Island her whole life. Doris falls into lonely despair when her mother passes away but thankfully has her job as a paper pusher to keep her busy during the day. She’s the only person over 40 at her company though her role as office outcast could be more attributed to her cat-lady eccentricities (cat-eye glasses, headscarves, wooly knits and all).

Hope of getting Doris unstuck from her rut arrives in the form of her company’s new art director, a strapping, decades-younger Los Angeles transplant amusingly named John Fremont (New Girl‘s Max Greenfield). On several occasions, we get lost with Doris in fantasy as she daydreams about John confessing his love for her in front of their colleagues and hooking up with him in the breakroom. Field is ungodly adorable as she fumbles and fawns, and Greenfield does a good job of keeping us in suspense as to whether or not Doris has got a shot at John’s heart.

With encouragement from her best (only) friend, Roz (Tyne Daly)—who takes her to a life-altering lecture by motivational speaker Willy Williams (Peter Gallagher)—Doris decides it’s time to make a change and begins fashioning herself to John’s interests (facilitated by Roz’s granddaughter, who schools her on the art of Facebook stalking), making a concerted, somewhat creepy effort to cougar her way into John’s arms. Suddenly, she’s clumsily throwing around millennial slang, rocking neon yellow outfits and going to indie electro-pop shows headlined by John’s favorite band, Baby Goya and the Nuclear Winters (where the two “coincidentally” bump into each other).

Just as a tight friendship starts to form between them and the thought of romance doesn’t seem so inconceivable, John meets another woman, bringing Doris’ dreams crashing down. In a drunken fit of desperation, she sabotages John’s new relationship (via a lovelorn timeline post from her fake Facebook account), a plan that naturally backfires and leads to even more heartbreak. Showalter and co-writer Laura Terruso—who directed the short the movie is based on as a student of Showalter’s at New York University—hit every romantic, comedic, and dramatic beat so well that the movie transcends genre. This makes for such an enjoyable experience because, instead of trying to predict where the story’s going, we’re allowed to let go of preconception and go wherever the emotions may take us. Every laugh, every heartbreak, every moment feels sincere, not hokey or contrived. Nothing’s cheap; everything’s earned. The movie’s liberating in that way.

Field is so talented it’s scary. It should go without saying—she’s a two-time Oscar winner, after all—but the sad reality is that female actors over 50 are typically relegated to secondary, tertiary, often motherly roles. Her career, tragically, supports that narrative. But that’s why Hello, My Name Is Doris is such a gift; in all her glory, we get to see Field showcase her unparalleled mastery of physical comedy (watching Doris quiver and drool as John pumps up her deflated gym-ball office chair is insanely funny) as well as her earth-shattering dramatic chops. In the movie’s most powerful, unsettling scene, Doris hops up onto her couch, screaming at her brother (Stephen Root) to leave her house as she tearfully refuses to clear out the piles of old magazines and expired food her mother left behind. It’s scenes like this that reveal the psychological complexity bubbling beneath Doris’ cartoonish exterior. Such a wonderfully weird, layered character is only safe in the hands of an actor of Field’s caliber.

Five years after nabbing the Palme d’Or for his 2010 feature, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Thai filmmaker Apichatpong “Joe” Weerasethakul, has crafted perhaps his most intimate work in over a decade. Instead of enchanting his audience with surrealist imagery, Joe chooses to mystify us by employing tools as transparent as implication and conversation. But he remains a master of controlling the frame, of capturing the unadulterated sounds of nature’s pumping heart, and he deliberately pulls us into a trance, into a world that exists aesthetically between sleep and dreams, but textually between history and the present moment. Bucolic environments throughout the film are observed in their most silent states, yet the sounds that remain despite the emptiness are amplified. Joe navigates spaces that initially appear slight, but focuses on them so intimately that they become wondrous.

Like fellow East Asian filmmaker Tsai Ming-Liang, Joe constructs his takes and their geometry with obsessive deliberation. What sets the two filmmakers apart, at least in terms of what’s visually obvious, is that Joe shoots the majority of his films outdoors, while Tsai’s meditative tone poems are generally consigned to dark interiors. Nature has a constant presence in Cemetery of Splendour. The environments feel sentient, and when the human characters walk through or interact with them, the visible gestures carry the weight of dialogue even though no words are actually spoken. The goal of many filmmakers is to find material worth observing; Joe believes all material is worth observing, and he proves it.

Cemetery of Splendour is set in its director’s hometown of Khon Kaen and stars his frequent collaborator Jenjira Pongpas, whose character, apparently mirroring her director, returns to her childhood home as an adult. She seeks out the school she attended growing up only to find it’s now a makeshift hospital designed to treat a company of soldiers suffering from a mysterious sleeping sickness. The location’s design is immaculate, conflating cloistered objects from its distant past with therapeutic technology that wouldn’t look awry in a modern science fiction film. Enamored by the events taking place in her prior schoolhouse, Jenjira begins tending to a young soldier named Itt (Banlop Lomnoi, co-star of Joe’s Tropical Malady). Itt occasionally breaks through into the waking world, but unless speaking through a telepathic woman named Keng (Jarinpattra Rueangram), he remains trapped in an unyielding slumber.

As the story progresses, we learn that the schoolyard turned hospital was built on a cemetery of kings, and that the restless spirits of these kings feed on the energy of these soldiers, ensnaring them in their own subconscious. Jenjira and the other characters occupying the present slowly begin to comprehend what exactly is going on, and as they do, history’s voice only grows louder. A pair of goddess statues take human form and begin to converse with Jenjira, telling her stories as though she were their contemporary. Viewing the film through western eyes, I can only assume the enigma of its mythology is exacerbated by cultural removal. But even taking this into account, I hesitate to wonder whether the extent of its message has failed to transcend that regional barrier. What Joe has to say seems like something people from all cultures could identify with.

The material in Cemetery of Splendour, while initially alien, is unpacked with grace and explicability. As ancient spirits contact those currently occupying physical bodies, a revelation about the confluence of souls begins to present itself. The high levels of cultural specificity the material appears to impose gets decimated by the universality of the ideology it harbors. Even referring to Joe’s philosophy as ideological seems reductive. He is merely enthralled by the relationships between conscious minds. It doesn’t matter that a hospital has been erected atop a cemetery, just like it doesn’t matter whether clouds look over a river or an ocean sits above the sky. All that matters is that these bodies and the minds that make them unique are in constant dialogue. Forgotten kings can chat with and advise millennial nurses and soldiers, because why wouldn’t they? Every tree, river, animal, and being that ever was and ever will be must rely on one another with the utmost compassion. Otherwise, how could we even bear to live?

Last year saw the release of Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight, a film about The Boston Globe’s investigation of the systematic cover-up of pedophilic priests by the Catholic Church. It’s a challenging watch given the subject matter, and McCarthy finds a balance in his film that never sugar-coats or cheapens the crimes it profiles for dramatic points. But Spotlight is not nearly as challenging as The Club, a drama that looks at child abuse by the Catholic clergy from the perspective of the accused.

The latest offering from Chilean director Pablo Larraín focuses specifically on four accused priests living out a Church-mandated exile in a quiet Chilean beach town, run by a former nun with baggage of her own. Although sequestered and living within rules that prohibit most contact with outsiders, the Fallen Five make the most of their circumstance by training a greyhound to become a champion racer. Going into the film, viewers know, at least at a high level, the heinousness of the subject matter (the priests’ past actions are eventually revealed in greater detail), and yet Larraín manipulates right out of the gate. The setting is a beautifully cozy hamlet and its denizens are as non-predatory as they can get. They are four charming old men living out their golden years breeding a race dog on the beaches of Chile, all the while being mothered by a charming older woman and living in relative harmony in a delightful yellow house. It’s serene.

Then BANG—Larraín reminds you of the seriousness of the situation with a scene so uncomfortable (and seemingly endless in the most unsettling of ways), followed by a moment so shocking yet so utterly genuine, that I audibly gasped.

The situation upends the four priests’ lives when The Vatican intervenes in the form of Father Garcia (Marcelo Alonso), whose goal is to investigate the incident, investigate the people living in the house, and ultimately shut the place down. As circumstances unfold, however, Father Garcia’s task might not be as easy as he thinks.

Larraín’s film takes on a procedural tone, creating an interesting (and compelling) dynamic. It sets up a good guy/bad guy construct with the clergy as the bad guys and Garcia as good. But the bad guys here are otherwise so likable, and Garcia, with his interrogations, stricter living conditions, and goal of shutting down the house, is just off-putting enough to be unlikable. Eventually, the rooting interests become blurred, and then Larraín’s skills truly shine as he slowly builds two very specific cases.

The first is the case against the Fallen Five. Despite their dark collective past, they continue to make questionable choices in the lives they lead after living in service to the Lord. There are hints of this poor behavior early on. They lie to the police about the event that kicks the story off, but the lies are told to protect themselves; they snoop through Garcia’s personal things, but they do it to understand his intentions so they can better shield their interests. They also drink and smoke and gamble, and while these things aren’t illegal, they too fit into a certain pattern of behavior: sin. Minor, at least at first, but sin nonetheless. The viewer might miss it though because Larraín, like a magician, distracts with the obvious transgressions—including the child abuse—and when no one is looking, he carefully layers these other, smaller things into the characters’ routine actions. They might be subtle, they might be acts committed for self-preservation, but they are still acts of varying degrees of wrong. It’s on this foundation of the flawed nature of humanity that Larraín makes a more difficult case, one that’s less pro-Church and more anti-anti-Church.

Because these five people have engaged in a lifetime of recidivist behavior and, as the film progresses, the sinful acts they commit increase in both selfishness and severity, the Fallen Five show that they have learned nothing while in exile. Larraín makes it clear that the problem is with the person, not the Collar, nor the Habit, nor the higher institution they once served and represented. The presence of Garcia reinforces this case, who represents the good amidst this sin. Not only is he tenacious in his investigation of the quintet, he tries early to break them of their more pedestrian transgressions. It appears as punishment but it’s actually an effort to redeem. By the film’s end—an end that highlights his monumental compassion—Garcia’s actions, and in particular the goodness of them, stand in stark contrast to those from the collective he has been sent to investigate. It isn’t about his Collar, it’s about his Christianity.

But have no illusions: this film is no mea culpa on behalf of the Catholic Church. And while it takes place in exile on the beaches of Chile, that doesn’t make the core subject matter any different than that of the story told by Spotlight in the parishes around Beantown. Despite that similarity and the familiar procedural strains, what Larraín does with The Club is more daring and direct than McCarthy’s film. It’s also more thought-provoking, as it goes beyond the expected (and warranted) knee-jerk reaction to the crimes committed, adding a facet to the subject that is worthy of consideration and onscreen treatment.

It almost feels like a religious experience, watching a movie that’s as beautifully alien and removed from convention as Embrace of the Serpent. Colombian filmmaker Ciro Guerra‘s Amazon-set drama is an indignant lament on the devastating, festering effects of colonialism, but it’s more experiential and less studious than that sounds. The black-and-white river imagery is supple, hypnotic and frightening, in that startling way that most unfamiliar things are, at first, frightening. The scariest thing, though, is how vividly Guerra shows us—via two white men’s parallel river quests, separated by 40 years—the extent of the destruction pale-skinned conquerors wreaked on the indigenous cultures of the region. Even scarier: the realization that the eradication of our indigenous people, in our America, makes Guerra’s dark fable hit uncomfortably close to home.

Like the narrative (which is based on a pair of white explorer’s real-life journals), the production’s heroes are dual, with cinematographer David Gallego having as much influence on the film’s success as Guerra. With locations as lush as the ones we glide and trudge through on the winding South American riverways, it seems best, for a story this restrained and contemplative, for us to simply, respectfully bear witness to the indescribably beautiful surroundings. There’s no need to breathe life into what’s already teeming with overly stylized presentation, and thankfully, Gallego’s got taste. The choice to go monochrome supports the thrust of the story; what would have been about color and vibrancy is now all about light, darkness and shadow.

At the center of the first story is Theodor Koch-Grunberg (Jan Bijvoet), a German explorer in search of a rare, sacred flower called the “yakuna.” Theo’s fallen ill on his expedition, tended to by his local guide, Manduca (Miguel Dionisio Ramos). As they land their boat onto the riverbank, they’re met by Karamakate (Nilbio Torres), a shaman who doesn’t take kindly to white men, whose violent conquest has rendered him a companionless river dweller, the last of his tribe. Locals like Manduca, who cooperate with the whites and have adopted many of their Western customs are, to him, just as disgusting. Reluctantly, Karamakate agrees to be their guide (only he knows how to reach the yakuna), enticed by Theo’s promise to help him find the last remaining survivors of his tribe, who the German claims he’s seen with his own eyes.

On their journey, the cultural divide is slowly bridged: Karamakate keeps Theo’s illness at bay with herbal medicine; Theo shares some of the worldly belongings he’s hauling around in his clunky luggage box. (Meanwhile, Manduca straddles the cultural line.) Their bond is shaken to the core when they come across a grove of drained rubber trees and indigenous workers mutilated and enslaved by the invaders. Tensions are heightened again when they happen upon a Catholic mission where a mad Spanish priest rules over orphaned indigenous children, forcing them to abandon their old customs as he abuses them on a whim in a multitude of sickening ways. This portion of the film is almost unbearably awful to watch. It speaks to Guerra’s integrity, though, that he shows no measure of restraint in depicting something so horrible as cultural extermination. Again, the true horror is how easily linked the priest’s child abuse is to issues of our time (Spotlight comes to mind).

Theo has a mental breakdown when his compass is stolen by one of the locals, fearing the technological trinket will sully the purity of the tribes traditions. Karamakate takes the fit as a sign of ignorant condescension, and they’re back to square one. Our link to the second story, set in the 1940s, is Karamakate, the older version of whom is played by Antonio Bolivar. We flash over to this second journey intermittently, which sees the shaman in a sorry state of soullessness, numbed to nothing by the continuing white-man takeover. He meets a new, American explorer, Evans (Brionne Davis), who, like Theo, is trekking towards the yakuna wonder-plant. The tone’s much more pensive and dirge-like in this less-eventful second story, which is mostly about the sorrow that’s built up in Karamakate following decades of watching his home ravaged by Western “progress.”

As grim and yucky as this all sounds, the movie isn’t without a few moments of mirth. Evans blowing Karamakate’s goddamn mind with a phonograph under a starry night sky is heart-meltingly cute, and when young Karamakate and Theo exchange the occasional glance of recognition and acceptance at each other, it gives the story just the right amount of hopefulness it needs to avoid being completely depressing. What’ll be most challenging about the film for many is its pace, which is relatively lax and often stretches moments and shots longer than normal. Some would call this meandering; I’d call it glamorously introspective (I have no qualms about staring at Gallego’s images for an extra beat or two—or three). Guerra’s made a magical film in that it feels strangely organic and of the earth. The mechanisms we’re used to recognizing and latching on to—performances, camera moves, editing, sound design—flow together so naturally in Guerra and his team’s hands that Embrace of the Serpent feels of the earth, not of 35mm celluloid.

It feels like sibling filmmakers are becoming more of a thing lately. In the last two years, movies of all varieties have been made by the Coens (the musically-themed Inside Llewyn Davis), the Wachowskis (big-budget sci-fi Jupiter Ascending), the Farrellys (franchise comedy Dumb and Dumber To), and the Russos (superhero tentpole Captain America: The Winter Soldier). Even a foreign drama is represented by siblings, as evidenced by Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz’s Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem.

This year, another pair of filmmaking siblings are introduced to the scene: Ben and Chris Blaine, with their first feature film Nina Forever.

Holly (Abigail Hardingham) has a romantic interest in Rob (Cian Barry), her coworker at a local grocery store. Her friends try to warn her away from him, though—he’s been suicidal since the accidental death of his girlfriend more than a year ago. Fate steps in when Rob is injured at work and Holly, who is studying to be a paramedic, offers to examine his wound. There’s a spark between them, and on their first date, that spark becomes a flame when they find their way to Rob’s bedroom. Their heat is quickly cooled, however, by the sudden appearance (in bed next to them, no less) of Rob’s ex-girlfriend—the very dead, very chatty Nina (Fiona O’Shaughnessy).

Nina, whose corpse is still bloodied and broken from the car accident that took her life, becomes a greater presence—and a greater nuisance—in the new couple’s life. As Rob struggles to figure out how to stop Nina’s appearances, Holly considers the opposite approach by embracing the decedent’s presence.

Who are these Blaine Brothers and where have they been hiding? Nina Forever is a sensational film, and while the presence of a talking corpse might tempt some to hang a horror tag on it, don’t take the bait. This is a deliciously dark comedy/psychological drama hybrid, using the horror device of Nina’s corpse as a symbol for guilt and loss, then doubling-down and using her unwillingness to leave Rob and Holly alone as a metaphor for the couple’s inability to properly deal with the loss (It also uses her wit for the funny bits—and there are plenty of those).

The film, co-written by the Blaines, has a strong foundation in the construct of its three lead characters. Rob is so burdened by loss and guilt (he was driving the car in the accident that killed Nina) that he has become mostly non-functioning. Holly is a wannabe paramedic—a healer, a rescuer, a fixer of things—and he is something she can fix. And Nina—poor, dead Nina—might be a symbol for something deeper, but on the surface she’s still the girlfriend who has been jilted, at least by circumstance (her insistence that Rob not refer to her as his “ex-girlfriend” because they never technically broke up is hysterically played).

O’Shaughnessy, Hardingham, and Barry all turn in solid performances, as do David Troughton and Elizabeth Elvin in key supporting turns as Nina’s parents.

As the story progresses, the characters evolve in a way that so many other writers struggle to make happen on the page. There is an organic fluidity to how the trio act, react, and interact throughout the length of the film. Also, Nina’s first reveal could have been treated as some type of singular moment that the rest of the film winds up tethered to until the end. Not so in the Blaines’ hands. That first reveal of Nina truly is the jumping-off point for a longer game with a wickedly smart ending I did not see coming. Sparkling dialogue that any actor would want to deliver tops off a script any director would want to helm.

There is a strong confidence to the Blaines’ direction, too. They are clearly not afraid to take creative chances, and this confidence results in that sweet spot between storytelling and artistry. This is an engaging story that is also great to look at. (Oh, and the fellas know how to film a scorching sex scene, too.) While they get key help from Oliver Russell’s gorgeous cinematography, their secret weapon is their editing. The Blaines join the growing list of filmmakers who edit their own work (a practice I’ve grown to appreciate). There are present-day moments in the film, such as Rob and Holly’s first date, that integrate glimpses from the past and teases from the future to offer a complete picture before the picture has even developed. Not only does that take confidence to attempt, it’s difficult to execute, but the directors make it work.

Nina Forever is the film to follow, and with it, the Blaine Brothers have brought serious game to the screen. It’s clear the film world’s latest sibling tag-team has come to play.

A version of this review was originally published on March 15th, 2015, as part of our coverage of the SXSW film festival.

My earliest recollection of watching a road movie dates back to my youth when a local TV station aired the series of Bob Hope/Bing Crosby/Dorothy Lamour Road to… comedy pictures. Since then, I’ve amassed a lot of cinematic road miles with everything from It Happened One Night to Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, and from Thelma & Louise to Nebraska. The latest offering of what is most definitely a road movie is set not in 20th century America, but rather 19th century Romania. It’s unlike any road movie I’ve seen before but in the most positive of ways.

Radu Jude’s Aferim!, set in Wallachia (Romania) in 1835, tells the tale of Costandin (Teodor Corban), a law enforcement official who, with his son Ionita (Mihai Comanoiu), embarks on a manhunt. The man they are hunting is Carfin (Toma Cuzin), a gypsy who was caught having an affair with the wife of Iordache (Alexandru Dabija), a boyar (high-ranking aristocrat) now fixed on revenge. Costandin and Ionita trek on horseback across various terrains, searching from village to village to find their man.

If that sounds like a Golden Age Hollywood western, believe me when I say it feels like one, too. This is just one of the great joys of Aferim!—how Jude, who co-wrote the screenplay with Florin Lazarescu, structures the film in a way that harkens back to a film like Howard Hawks’ great western Red River. In that film, John Wayne and Montgomery Clift play a father/(adopted) son leading a cattle drive along the Chisholm Trail, but it isn’t getting from Point A to Point B that’s important; it’s what happens during the drive that is key. The same approach is taken here. The pursuit of Carfin is little more than an excuse to allow circumstances to unfold with and between the father/son duo during the trip. In both cases, the journey is more important than the destination.

More homage paid to the American western—or rather, more specifically, paid to director John Ford, a master of the genre—is Jude’s use of B&W film and his compilation of stunning long shots of the Romanian countryside. Helping Jude achieve his vision is cinematographer Marius Panduru, who dulls the contrast between the darks and lights to achieve something more visually fitting to humanity’s geo-centric bleakness of the time period.

Aferim! does not hesitate to depict the cruel history of slavery, racism, misogyny, and lawless corruption that existed in that region and at that time. The abuse of gypsy slaves, both verbal and physical, ranges from unsettling to harrowing (particularly in one instance of justice meted vigilante-style). Women are, by law, inferior to men, and the attitude towards other ethnicities, especially in one chunk of dialogue spewed by a clergyman (!), is shocking. Given the abundance of gypsy slaves in that part of the world during that era, the reminders of how cruel a people they were is constant. Being juxtaposed against such a beautifully lensed backdrop makes it that much more unforgettable.

Jude adds one additional dimension to his film that doesn’t soften the blow of dealing with Romania’s dark history head-on, but it sure does provide the occasional respite: humor. And not just any humor, but bawdy, raucous humor that uses foul language so liberally it’s like the script was seasoned by a salt shaker full of hand grenades. The frankness of language is initially disarming given the visual aesthetic, the need for subtitles, and the blunt delivery, but it quickly becomes a natural part of the film’s dialogue, mostly delivered by Costandin as if he were a character created by Judd Apatow.

As for Costandin, he’s a bullish, boorish old man whose verbal arsenal is never short on hilarious stories, couplets, quotes, or homespun wisdom, all of which he imparts on his son. (My favorite line: “Even a fallen tree rests.” Whatever that means.) Teodor Corban, who is in nearly every scene and has more than the most dialogue of any player, performs marvelously in this role. He’s a natural, delivering his lines with great bombast but never to the point of caricature.

Rounding out this excellent production are Dana Paparuz’s costumes and Trei Parale’s Romanian folk-infused score. Both add a high degree of authenticity to the film that helps transport the viewer to that point in time.

The triple-threat of imagery, history, and comedy, salted with language and made even better by a terrific lead performance, all combine to make Aferim! a road picture like no other. This is my first Radu Jude film, and it’s one that has me eager to find his previous two.

One of the more awkward topics in the early points of a romantic relationship involves the discussion of past loves. The reality is most people are not their current love’s first love, and yet some struggle to admit there was someone before them. This topic can be most sensitive in the early months of a relationship, especially if there is a concern that feelings for an ex might still exist. Fear about this isn’t exclusive to new relationships, however. In Andrew Haigh’s sublime 45 Years, a couple who has been together for nearly half a century finds their relationship suddenly tested by a voice from the past.

That couple is the Mercers: Kate (Charlotte Rampling), a retired teacher, and Geoff (Tom Courtenay), a retired plant worker. They live a quiet life in the British countryside where they go about their business the ways most retired couples do: walking the dog, puttering about the house, running errands in town, etc. Those halcyon days of their golden years take a sharp turn just a week before their 45th wedding anniversary, when Geoff receives a letter that the body of a long-deceased former love has been found. “My Katya,” as Geoff refers to her when he breaks the news to his wife, was the love he knew before Kate. The discovery of Katya, whose body was frozen solid and lost for half a century in the mountains of Switzerland, changes Geoff. That change, along with the subsequent discovery of other information, changes Kate.

There’s a high degree of difficulty in properly presenting 45 Years without it devolving into some mawkish soap about old age and young love and regret and whatnot. Fortunately, it’s a challenge Andrew Haigh (who adapted the screenplay from David Constantine‘s short story In Another Country) more than rises to. The filmmaker has a keen awareness that a 45-year marriage is simultaneously strong and vulnerable, and he has a clear understanding that the frailty of the human ego is something that doesn’t fade with age.

The strength of the Mercers’ relationship is the most obvious aspect of the film. A couple doesn’t get to its 45th wedding anniversary on cruise control. Marriages take work to get that far, and the Mercers have put in that work, but their success is measured by more than just a number. It’s also measured by their contentment and ease with each other. It’s a subtle but important thing. This is an elderly couple not portrayed as bitter or cantankerous or even slyly dismissive of each other; they love each other and have for a long time. The fact that they are planning a 45th-anniversary party is a great example of that. They had planned a party for their 40th—a more logical milestone—but illness got in the way. They didn’t reschedule it for as soon as possible, nor did they clamor to try again at 41. They shrugged their shoulders, knew in their hearts they’d be together no matter what the year, and rounded to the next 5-year marker to throw a replacement party.

The part that’s less obvious, the part that’s more important, is the vulnerability of a relationship that has lasted so long. It isn’t a vulnerability that comes with boredom or complacency because these aren’t people looking for something new. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. These are people who are comfortable with, perhaps subconsciously cling to, the familiarities and rituals they have built up over 45 years. The film is rich with little suggestions of this. So when something like the unexpected reemergence of the corpse of a past love enters this familiar space, it might not crumble the house, but it chips the paint, and chipped paint is the kind of thing that gnaws at someone because they know it’s there and they can’t leave it alone.

And therein lies the never-aging frailty of the human ego that Haigh gets so right. With the reemergence of Katya’s body, Geoff is whisked back to the past and once again reminded of a love realized and yet left incomplete by tragedy. If he were a 40-something who had run into a high school flame at a reunion, he might buy a flashy car. He’s not that guy. Instead, he starts smoking again. He tries reading Kierkegaard again. He moves a little closer to being that irritable old man who wonders if he did it right. He worries that his old love’s frozen body has not aged a day while his has aged thousands. These little changes, these little comments, this renewed interest in a time he long filed away keeps the paint chipping and threatens to crack a wall.

Kate is in tune with it all. Acutely.

At first, it’s not that big a deal. Sure, it’s an old love, but it’s a dead love. However, as Geoff’s interest in Kierkegaard and finding old mementos increases, and as those moments when the couple would share quiet small talk turn into a discussion about Katya (again), Kate wears down. She asks questions—little ones—that illustrate the stoic and supportive face she wears on the outside hides an unraveling self-confidence on the inside. Learning something new and unexpected only exacerbates the problem because now it feels like Geoff is hiding something. When she starts poking around in the attic, her disbelief is crippling. The stakes are immeasurable because it’s not as if she might lose her husband to some fling the way a 40-year-old might; she might lose her husband to a ghost, and there’s no fighting that.

Rampling plays her incredibly deep and complex role to perfection. There is no scenery to chew, no impassioned speech to make, no confrontation to be had with “the other woman,” so in the absence of that, Rampling wields subtlety like a surgeon with a scalpel: precise, efficient, effective. It’s an amazing performance, and one made greater by the fact that Haigh keeps her the focus of almost every scene. But Courtenay is no slouch either, and it takes a real actor to be convincing in his late-life change and give Rampling everything she needs to shine.

Love does not have a finish line. There is no point along the timeline of a relationship where someone can say, “We made it this far; nothing can come between us now.” A relationship is like any other living thing: it needs constant care and attention, and it is always susceptible to damage, whether it’s a budding flower of romance or a mighty oak of marriage. With 45 Years, Andrew Haigh and his pair of stars prove this to be true, and they do so in the most well-measured yet mesmerizing of ways.

Directed and written by newcomer Morgan Knibbe, Those Who Feel the Fire Burning is an unusual and powerful documentary about the lives of immigrants stuck in Europe.

Those Who Feel the Fire Burning opens strongly with a man drowning at sea, having fallen from a boat taking him into a port. This drowning is shown from his perspective, with the darkness slowly filling the screen as he sinks down into the ocean. The ghost of this man then serves as our narrator and guide through the streets of Europe’s coastal towns and ports.

Whilst the narrator wonders philosophically about paradise and the failed hopes and dreams of himself and the others who managed to make it to Europe, the camera glides over and through towns and cities on Europe’s coast, focusing on several immigrants struggling to stay alive. We follow one man filling a pram with iron desperate for money. We also follow a Senegalese man living in an old disused house in dreadful condition, telling his wife on the phone about all the shoes and lipstick he can afford to buy and bring home to her. In particularly distressing scenes we also encounter a woman using an old phone charger tied around her arm to help her inject heroin, along with several immigrants mourning the loss of family members and friends who died at sea trying to get into the port.

Knibbe’s voyeuristic approach compounds the sense of unease, grief and isolation of the immigrants. The camera can get uncomfortably close to its subjects, so we can see the pain in their eyes whilst a relentless haunting soundtrack plays in the background. Knibbe conveys Europe as an unwelcoming world for immigrants as the camera lingers over dark streets filled with tension and police. The world these immigrants have entered is alien, isolating and disorienting. Those Who Feel the Fire Burning is not an easy watch. There is no sense of detachment and distance that would have come from a film with facts and statistics. Knibbe does not give the film any political context. This is not a film inclined to provoke a detailed discussion of the complex geo-political circumstances behind immigration. Instead, Knibbe gives a visceral and emotional portrayal of life as an immigrant. He conveys immigrants as trapped in a nightmarish purgatory, unable to move further on through Europe for a more prosperous life, yet also unable to return home to their families. When the narrator ponders his life as a ghost, of “existing and not existing,” the comparison with immigrants feeling a lack of identity is obvious, and serves to emphasize this point further.

Yet Knibbe is not always subtle, and Those Who Feel the Fire Burning does possess a fault—the film’s narration, which can occasionally be a little simplistic. In one scene the narrator asks “Are you an angel?” as the camera looks upon a little girl, obviously hammering home the heaven and purgatory theme. Knibbe has created such a powerful atmosphere with the cinematography and score alone that Those Who Feel the Fire Burning arguably does not need the voice-over and ghost character in order to elicit an emotional response. This scene feels manufactured, and is clumsy given the rest of the film’s subtlety. Thankfully, these missteps from Knibbe are infrequent. Those Who Feel the Fire Burning is a provocative, hypnotic film that draws you into a frightening world of uncertainty and hopelessness. It is a unique, intelligent film from Knibbe that deserves all the praise it can get.

Originally published on April 24, 2015, as part of our Hot Docs 2015 coverage.

We plunge into the second volume of Miguel Gomes‘ Arabian Nights without the introductory support of prologues. Only the familiar yellow titles remind us that what we’re about to see is not an adaptation, but an inspiration. Told through fictionalized accounts of actual events that occurred in Portugal between 2013 and 2014, events which left many citizens even more impoverished than before. As soon as The Desolate One ended, only a few fully formed thoughts rose out of the rubble left of my mind. Namely, I silently thanked the director for dividing Arabian Nights into three volumes, for it would be highly detrimental to the overall experience if the audience were tasked with watching all six hours in one sitting.

Partitioned into individual stories—some with multiple narrative tangents of their own—the cinematic wealth of information in Arabian Nights is best digested in fragmented doses. The Desolate One, with its three vastly varied reflections of soul-squeezing desolation, might turn out to be the most emblematic of this richness. A point which—unless I find Volume 3 to be some otherworldly masterpiece—no doubt played a part in selecting this particular volume as Portugal’s Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film. For even the most emotionally barren tale here, about a reclusive villager of ill-repute on the run from local authorities, is draped in pensive mystery and fried in sun-dried humor. Simao (Chico Chapas) is a son of a bitch, and part of a population of people who are rarely represented on screen. Throughout his story, Gomes constantly pits our perceptions of him and his actions (often bizarre but harmless) with legendary rumors of evil and violence about him, including the reason why the authorities are hounding him. It’s a story of evil full of curiosities, imbued in the kind of lonesomeness found under the surface of so many Westerns.

The second story, with a Judge (Luísa Cruz, pulling off the most memorable performance in Arabian Nights so far) presiding over a case that gets ridiculously out of hand is, in all respects, an intense masterpiece of imagination. Arabian Nights hits the peak of its seductive powers in ‘The Tears of the Judge’ from the increasingly bizarre buildup of crimes and passive-aggressive blame-avoidance and Sayombhu Mukdeeprom’s purplish tinctures cinematography which adds to the phantasmagoria in the air. This chapter is the epicenter of the entire piece. The Portuguese court system gets a fantastical make-over in this story; a smorgasbord of cultures, traditions, time periods, and social classes. It’s bonkers magic realism with an endless lifespan, peppered with mercurial humor, and momentous beyond words.

The third and final tale in The Desolate One immediately recalls Gomes’ beautiful Tabu, thanks to the familiar faces of Isabel Muñoz Cardoso and Teresa Madruga. Centered around a block of apartments, ‘The Owners of Dixie’ is in the lonely spirit of Simao’s story, yet it borrows heavily from the imaginative streak from in the previous chapter. A woman finds a mysterious dog which uncannily resembles her old one, and gives it to her friends in an effort to add some joy into their depressing lives. The dog goes from owner to owner, and is the adorable witness to a perceptible sense of nostalgia and dilapidated human spirit, held delicately together by that strange little thing called love.

My mind turned to rubble by the end because it completely succumbed to the film’s undeniable charms. The Desolate One continues where The Restless One left off, building a bridge from literature to cinema. And in more ways than one, this chapter of Scheherazade’s storytelling edges closer to the cinematic end of that bridge. As an art form that envelops all others unto itself. It’s similar to a piece of classical music; here’s the midsection that’s more abstract, more contemplative, and slower in sinking in, but only because it’s slightly more profound in execution and style than what came before. With its mesmeric mixture of genres and moods, a superb screenplay and inspirational camera work and composition (naked Brazilian ladies sunbathing on the rooftop, in one jaw-dropping shot), The Desolate One may just be the most haunting movement of Gomes’ glorious, deeply melancholic, symphony. The Enchanted One is the next and final volume, but it’s already clear that we’re in the midst of the director’s magnum opus.

Originally published on October 1st, 2015 as part of our coverage for the New York Film Festival.

In one of the most riveting lead performances of 2015, Christopher Abbott plays the emotionally adrift James White. He’s a twentysomething in the midst of a terrible family double-tragedy: his father’s just passed and his mother, Gail (Cynthia Nixon), has terminal cancer. It’s a chilly November morning in New York City and there’s a memorial for his father being held at his mom’s apartment where friends and family have gathered to mourn, but that’s not where James is. James is slumping through a raging club, drunk and delirious, pushing his way past sweaty young bodies in his stinky gray hoodie (which he seldom changes). He emerges from the den of excess, steps into sunlight and hops into a cab. When he finally arrives at the gathering, he meets the grieving guests with dark circles under his eyes, smelling of gym socks and booze. All he wants is for everyone to leave so that he can continue to bum on his mom’s couch and party every night. He’s an easy read: Scumbag. Slacker. Fuck-up. Freeloader.

James White, the moving directorial debut of Brooklyn filmmaker Josh Mond, doesn’t let you write James off so easily. In addition to being a total slob and a bully who’s more than happy to lay hands on any stranger who rubs him the wrong way, he’s an attentive caregiver, a loving son and a good friend. He’s only got one friend, Nick (Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi), but they’re tight; they back each other up in bar fights, and Nick’s happy to help take care of Gail at the drop of a hat. James can be a dick, but slowly we begin to understand his mental oddities and hangups. He unleashes his anger on people outside of his tiny inner circle because he’d never intentionally hurt the ones he loves. Does that make him a good guy? An asshole? He’s neither, existing in that complicated, dark, mysterious space in between. He’s a ticking time bomb, and as his story unfolds, we learn what makes him tick.

Sympathy for James blossoms as we get to know him, but melodrama and sentimentality are virtual non-factors in Mond’s storytelling. James White is a chillingly up-close-and-personal observation of a young man bubbling with so much emotion that he exists perpetually at the precipice of physical and psychological implosion. Dire, stressful situations like James’ are ugly and messy and horrible, so Mond doesn’t attempt to paint a pretty picture.

Still, glimmers of sweetness arise as we unpack James’ mental baggage. He’s got some serious (scary) anger issues, but being around his mother brings out his softer, compassionate side: When Gail’s admitted to the hospital following a frightful mental lapse, James gets frustrated that he can’t find her a bed amid the chaotic hospital traffic of busy doctors and nurses. In the name of her well being, he tries exercising patience. “All I’m trying to do is get her a bed,” he pleads with the bed manager. “She’s down there sitting in her own shit. I’m just trying to do anything I can do to help her.” The most powerful scene involves son helping mother from bedroom to bathroom, carrying her weight as she’s too sick to stand. Gail’s too exhausted to make it back to her bed and asks James to sit for a minute, burying her head in his chest. “Where do you want to be?” he asks her gently. “Paris,” she whispers.

Such subtle, penetrating character work is a hallmark of the film collective to which Mond belongs, Brooklyn’s Borderline Films. Mond and fellow filmmakers/best friends Sean Durkin and Antonio Campos were the guys behind Martha Marcy May Marlene and Simon Killer, and James White fits comfortably into the group’s catalogue of low-and-slow psychological dramas.

The Borderline fellows have also exhibited a keen eye for visual poetry and meaning, and Mond’s film may just be their crowning achievement in that regard. Cinematographer Mátyás Erdély employs the same clingy, close-proximity technique that made his work on Son of Saul so widely discussed and dissected in cinephile circles, almost never straying more than a foot from James side even as he rushes through swinging doors to escape uncomfortable interactions. Staying so tight on James never gives us an inch of breathing room should we feel the urge to shy away from his pain or the tension of the disaster he’s dealing with.

Given this perma-close-up technique pretty much defines the film visually, the pressure was on Abbott to turn in a breakthrough performance, and he obliged to astounding effect. The former Girls actor powers through the movie with the force and velocity of a cannonball, bringing a different color and energy to each scene. Without a doubt, Abbott proves he’s a world-class talent, and Nixon’s equally stunning performance takes James White to another level.

It takes 20 or so minutes before we see the vibrantly playful title of the first chapter in Miguel Gomes‘ latest project, all bedecked in gold; Arabian Nights: Volume 1, The Restless One. Before it; a prologue interweaves three narrative threads in a hypnotically potent way, gluing the intended audience to the screen. First-person accounts of Portugal’s declining shipbuilding industry, a wasp epidemic, and a film director (Gomes himself) who is plagued by the apparent stupidity of his own idea for his next film. That is, a metaphorical linkage of the infamous “One Thousand And One Nights” fairytale structure to his interpretation of Portugal’s economic crisis. This meta-documentary approach with the prologue is odd and endearing, but it resonates, above all else, because of its raw honesty.

A single shot stands a cut above the rest from this introduction. A wonderfully long wide shot of a large group of people seeing off a ship from Viana’s seaport, as the voice(s)-over swing between shipyard employees and a self-made wasp exterminator. It’s pregnant with a kind of romanticized melancholia that has become one of Gomes’ signature traits, and augurs—before we’re even introduced to Scheherazade (Crista Alfaiate)—how the director might just pull off his “stupid” idea in remarkable fashion. Indeed, from the moment we delve into the first story about ‘The Men With Hard-Ons,’ to the emotional precipice we’re left with by the end of ‘The Swim of the Magnificent,’ Gomes proves The Restless One is everything under the sun, but never, ever, stupid.

Scheherazade’s unique way of avoiding imminent death at the hands of her mad king husband has attracted Gomes to use her method in order to create a work of surreal, humorous, and vigorously compelling cinematic art. For those unaware of the Arabian Nights premise, a quick brief: the beautiful Scheherazade takes it upon herself to stop her Persian king’s violent ways, a man with a reputation for murdering his wives after taking their virginity. Each night, right before he’s about to sentence her to death, his new wife starts telling him a story, only to stop it halfway. The king, unable to bear the thought of not knowing how the story ends, spares her life for another day so that she may finish recounting it the next night. This surrender to the power of storytelling courses through Gomes’ entire filmography, so it’s easy to see why he’s so attracted to Scheherazade’s method.

Getting into too much detail about the first three stories in The Relentless One would be the equivalent of spoiling the twist in a Shyamalan movie, so I’m not doing it. Suffice it to say that, through finespun camera work, unostentatious cinematography by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (Apichatpong Weerasethakul‘s DP), and Gomes’ screenplay (written with Telmo Churro and Mariana Ricardo), the allegories of Portugal’s unemployment crisis and her government’s negotiations with the European troika are generated with an insoluble type of electric charge. Though not an actor’s showcase by any means, Adriano Luz (who plays the “haggard romantic” Luis in the third story) and Dinarte Branco (who delivers the greatest monologue of the entire chapter as Lopes in the first story) are vital to The Restless One‘s emotional undercurrent. One that’s in constant flux between love for a country and rage at the state it’s in.

Through all the Luis Buñuel-esque hijinks and splashes of sheer brilliance, moments stick out. An intensely languid tracking shot of a man describing his experience as someone “unemployed by circumstance”. A preadolescent love triangle composed in a humorously exaggerated version of Generation Y SMS language. A man remembering the time he got his finger stuck in Biology class—a memory orchestrated by the most effective shot transition in the whole film. Moments of joy, devastation, despair, love, acceptance, and washed-up whales that explosively birth mermaids. You don’t need to see all three volumes to understand that Arabian Nights sees Miguel Gomes at his most ambitious, exposing his artistic soul in the most honest way he knows how. The realism of the film’s prologue is contrasted with the surrealism of everything that comes after it, but both share Gomes’ impulse to lure the viewer in through the power of story, intimate and epic alike.

The second story, ‘The Cockerel And The Fire,’ is decidedly weaker than the others, or at least the first half of it is, which impacts the glorious momentum of The Relentless One. Anticipation for the second volume, The Desolate One, is no less palpable for it. Even more significantly, the emotions evoked by watching how low fantasy embraces socioeconomics in one of the year’s boldest cinematic events, remain none the wiser.

Originally published on September 30th, 2015.

Writer/director Deniz Gamze Ergüven has explained that her film Mustang—which was filmed in Turkey, spoken in Turkish, and labeled a French film because of the country of origin of its director—doesn’t have any alternate foreign language title. Apparently “mustang” is mostly a universal term. In Ergüven’s film, the word couldn’t have been more aptly chosen. If a mustang is an unbroken and unbridled creature, the five young women featured in this film embody exactly that. What starts as a dreamy and playful look at rambunctious and headstrong girls in their youthful prime melds subtly and meaningfully into a powerful view into the barbarously different female experience for women in different parts of our world.

In a small Turkish coastal town, five sisters start their summer break from school by exerting their tenacity and free will, splashing through the beach as they walk home and playing games of chicken with teenaged boys from their school. The youngest of them, Lale (Gunes Sensoy), exhibits the most spunk, determined to match her elder sisters—Nur (Doga Zeynep Doguslu), Ece (Elit Iscan), Selma (Tugba Sunguroglu), and Sonay (Ilayda Akdogan)—in confidence and self-expression. When they arrive home from their last school day, their grandmother (Nihal Koldas) awaits ready to lash out at the girls for their improper behavior, word of which has traveled through the small town amongst local gossips. The girls react strongly, protecting one another from beatings and rushing to tell-off the righteous woman who ratted on them.

Their total dismissal of their grandmother’s reaction is energetically humorous and does well to quickly showcase the tight-knit nature of these five sisters. But this seemingly harmless incident kickstarts a reactionary response from their family—both their grandma and uncle look after the girls who were orphaned years before. It begins tediously enough with the girls being restricted from leaving the house and forced to partake in traditional lessons from their grandmother and other local women. The girls learn to cook and sew and are forced to start wearing modest long brown dresses. They make do, running around the house in bras and underwear, playing games with one another and sneaking out down their drain pipe. The girls are annoyed with the new regime of no computers or phones, but continue to speak their minds and exert their individuality, expressing themselves in rebellions both big and small.

A trip to town one day makes their grandmother’s intentions a bit clearer to the girls. She asks them to walk through the town center displaying the girls to the families and men also there. Clearly the lessons and increased restrictions are measures meant to make the girls more marriable. The two eldest girls are the first to undergo the traditional arrangements, a brief meeting with the family of an eligible boy and a quick betrothal. Sonay manages to bully her grandmother into arranging a marriage with a boy she has already been sneaking around with and fallen for, but her sister is forced to accept the arrangements made for her.

The push from adolescence to adulthood in the film is less coming of age than innocence taken, but Ergüven—who co-wrote the script with Alice Winocour—doesn’t allow the film to wander too far into tragic victimization, instead providing one of the most tenacious films on female empowerment to come out in recent years. As the girls are ripped apart, their connected strength waning, it’s Lale, the youngest, who refuses to accept the fate laid out for her by her elders. And just like that, Mustang moves from being a disturbing cultural insight to an adrenaline pumping getaway.

Despite its rural setting and the rather alien practices performed in the film, Mustang is distinctly contemporary and salient. The judgment on these girls’ feminity and the perceived threat of their sexuality and the urgency to curb it is so incredibly universal. But even more relatable (to a degree) as their oppression is, what is most piercing about Ergüven’s film is the obvious and fierce response of these siblings. Oppression occurs everywhere, but outrage and advocacy do as well. This fight belongs to many in the world, from rural Turkey to New York City, and the film is the best kind of sticking agent, uniting anyone who feels the injustice.

The young actresses of Mustang are critical to its flawlessness, right down to their identically long flowing—and distinctly unbridled-horse-esque—hair. Their chemistry is altogether magical and almost documentary feeling in its sincerity. Ergüven’s light touch allows the film’s inexperienced stars to shine. The film’s pacing is perfect, with quiet moments accenting the isolation of the girls’ house or the many ways in which they bond with one another in their imprisonment. Warren Ellis’s off-kilter score fits the mood, never letting it get too sappy or alternately too rambunctious.

Mustang is France’s entry into this year’s Academy Awards and for sheer surefootedness from its first time director alone, it is sure to be the sort of film that gets attention. And rightly so. In highlighting both the unfortunate extreme of female persecution and also the most extreme courage and perseverance in the face of such inequality, and by making its hero a very young and determined girl, Mustang manages to shed light on the wrongs of today while instilling hope in the tenacity of the future.

Everything about this film is brave, but more significant is the way it imbues bravery on those who watch.

Writer-director Afia Nathaniel’s debut feature Dukhtar (Daughter) is an important and urgent film depicting the unfortunately accepted practice in Pakistan of a child (in this case, as it often is, a girl) being given away for marriage to settle a blood feud. But even more than that, Dukhtar is a thrilling and vibrant adventure film that beautifully captures the love a mother has for her daughter, and the lengths she will go in order to ensure her daughter’s protection.

The film begins when 15-year-old Allah Rakhi is given in marriage to the older tribal chief Daulat Khan (Asif Khan). Ever since the marriage, Allah Rakhi has been completely separated from her family and robbed of finishing any education she could’ve hoped for. Later, a now grown Allah Rakhi (Samiya Mumtaz) shares a 10-year-old daughter, Zainab (Saleha Aref), with Daulat. Upon learning that Daulat has promised Zainab to rival tribe leader Tor Gul (Abdullah Jaan), Allah Rakhi decides to flee with her young daughter to save Zainab from the same fate she suffered. After a harrowing escape the mother and daughter come upon truck driver Sohail (Mohib Mirza), who agrees to help them escape. From there, the film excels as the journey bonds the three of them together, creating the emotional core of the film.

The success of this intriguing story is tied to Nathaniel’s assured direction, who creates one of the more stunning debuts of the last several years. Nathaniel’s biggest triumph is that, while dealing with large and important issues, she never allows them to overshadow the narrative at hand, showing a strong command of story and structure. The pacing may feel rushed at the beginning, but it adds to the nightmarish quality of the early escape scenes before letting the film open up in the second half.

Helping Nathaniel accomplish the transition from the escape to the journey that follows is the work of cinematographer and editor Armughan Hassan. Hassan does excellent work using the film’s mountainous locations to capture some of the most lush and beautiful images of the year, a far cry from the chaotic and claustrophobic visuals filling the early scenes. The use of color is another strength in his work, often contrasting the bright wardrobe of Allah Rakhi and Zainab against the harsh, muted tones of their surroundings. The only element of Hassan’s visuals that doesn’t work is a reliance on soft focus and rack focusing during a few scenes, but not enough can be said about the beautiful landscapes Hassan captures, bringing the work of Terrence Malick to mind (which is just about the highest praise I can think of for a cinematographer).

In front of the camera, Samiya Mumtaz delivers a wonderful performance as a mother doing everything she can to save her child against all odds. It’s a performance that can be gut-wrenching at times, but is almost never without hope. Mohib Mirza is strong as well, providing a welcome presence in the latter half of the film as his character begins to care and look out for Allah Rakhi and Zainab. And Saleha Aref is solid in the role of Zainab, but doesn’t have as much to do as she takes a back seat to her two co-stars as the film progresses. Outside of these three the rest of the supporting cast is far too one-note and ineffective to leave much of an impression, their near mustache-twirling villainy out-of-place amongst an otherwise great film.

Overall, Dukhtar is a powerful and moving film capable of providing more thrills than your average blockbuster, a rare and exciting combination from an emerging filmmaker. With a mostly strong cast and skillful crew, this is a film that shouldn’t be missed. And it will be interesting to see where an interesting voice like Nathaniel will go from here.

Dukhtar is currently playing in limited release across the US. To find out more information about the film and where it’s playing, visit www.dukhtarthefilm.com.

Documentarian Frederick Wiseman is 85 years old. An odd stat to begin a review with, granted, but In Jackson Heights is no ordinary documentary and in thinking about it, my knee-jerk reaction is to start with something personal. With age comes experience, understanding, and a widened scope of the world around you. For all the exceptional documentaries Wiseman has been making since the ’60s, there is a weighted atmosphere in his latest one that could easily mark it as his magnum opus precisely because of all the things that come with age. Bear in mind that it’s not easy to write ‘easily’ when it comes to Wiseman, especially with the man’s latest works—the riveting At Berkley (2013) and majestic National Gallery (2014)—ranking among the best of his prolific career. But In Jackson Heights is kaleidoscopic in a most humanitarian and intimate sense; it’s the observance of beautiful forms in culture and everyday life. In this case: a bustling neighborhood in Queens, New York, one of the most culturally diverse areas in the whole world, proudly speaking 167 languages as a community. It’s the Tower of Babel converging on Roosevelt Avenue, with Wiseman’s camera observing, documenting, and eternally reflecting, and with the viewer vicariously experiencing a gamut of life’s pleasures and pains.

The documentary is an ode to the bonds of community, where the villain is an off-screen American capitalist system, and the victims are small businesses, the LGBT enclaves, and the illegal immigrants striving for the same humanitarian means of life afforded by their American neighbors. The heroes are found in the young people who create community organizations to fight the thwarted system of the BID (Business Improvement District), or those brave enough to speak up, share their stories, and forge bonds. Wiseman takes us into a commemoration gathering for a murdered Latino member of the LGBT community, Muslim prayer halls, Holocaust remembrance ceremonies in synagogues, tattoo parlors, concert halls, and gay clubs. We listen in on a conference call where bureaucratic jargon bungles the matter of redistricting schools (not to mention the implications that has on the children and the parents). We listen how a 98-year-old woman justifies her sour mood to a group of friends, in one of the many scenes that test your tear ducts (which have already been weakened earlier by a woman’s spontaneous encounter with a Christian group on the streets earlier on).

In Jackson Heights runs for over three hours, but you’re so immersed into the people’s stories, that it literally feels like half an hour. Musical interludes, from street performers and open-air concerts, punctuate the mood like a chorus in a Greek tragedy, imbibing the whole experience with a surplus of emotion and an embarrassment of cultural richness. At times, it’s the silent and bloody behind-the-scenes look at how halal meat is processed that glues us in. In others, it’s Joe’s birthday, an upstanding member of the Jackson Heights community who gets a heartfelt birthday speech from councilman Daniel Dromm. Most of all, it’s the soul-crushing stories from the trans people, illegal immigrants, and small business owners that will bulldoze you into silent submission. But, then, peeping into a classroom of would-be yellow cab drivers will have you grinning from ear to ear.

There’s hardly a misplaced frame, so formally balanced and meticulously crafted is In Jackson Heights. Exterior shots of the vibrant and colorful neighborhood are juxtaposed beautifully with the interior locales. Moments of contemplation nicely sway between long conversational stretches. And for all of life’s trials and tribulations witnessed through stories of discrimination and inhumanity spelled between the lines of fine print, there is plenty of kindness from strangers and reassuring and laugh-out-loud moments of grace and joy. If there’s one thing I feel lacking, it’s that Wiseman could’ve kept his camera a little longer on some people for an even wider spectrum. As such, one gets the impression that In Jackson Heights is a neighborhood where 167 languages are spoken, but mostly Spanish and English is heard.

Harping too much on something like that, however, is biting the hand that feeds. And Frederick Wiseman, with his experience, understanding, and widely empathetic scope, has given us an almost indescribable amount of food-for-thought. Calling In Jackson Heights important would be the biggest understatement of the year, for the greatest thing about getting so immersed with the conversations and quotidian glimpses are the little jolts (usually in the form of goose-bumps) reminding you that this is real life you’re watching. Who needs talking heads and central conflicts? Not this doc. You feel unequivocally more connected to the person next to you, and even the stranger you’ll pass by on the street the next day. And isn’t that what it’s all about?

In a dystopian Tokyo, 23 “tribes” (read: gangs) rule different sections of the city. These tribes range from the GiraGira Girls, a group of women including a whip-cracking dominatrix, to the Musashino Saru, a gang all about promoting peace and love. But it’s the Bukuro Wu-Ronz running everything, and their leader Big Buppa (Takeuchi Riki) is not to be messed with. Mera, one of Bukuro Wu-Ronz’s top members, starts a feud with Musashino Saru heads Tera (Ryuta Sato) and Kai (Young Dais), and the battle soon spins out of control, involving every other tribe in an epic battle to become the most powerful in the city. And did I mention it’s a hip-hop musical? Welcome to the insane world of Sion Sono and Tokyo Tribe.

But that’s not all! There’s also the presence of Sunmi (Nana Seino), a mysterious girl dragged into the gang conflict with some serious fighting skills. In fact, a lot of the cast can fight really well. This also happens to be a highly kinetic action film, with numerous fight scenes placed in between the rap songs sung by the massive cast. Sometani Shota provides help for viewers as the film’s MC, walking around scenes rapping exposition about different tribes and their feuds with other gangs. Just don’t bother actually trying to understand what the hell is going on, though. Tokyo Tribe is so dense and convoluted there are already 50 other things occurring the minute after a scene ends.

The density and hyperactivity of Sono’s style prove his film’s biggest strength and weakness. Sono, working with what looks like his biggest budget to date, packs as much as he possibly can into each frame. His shots are more ambitious, letting things play out in long, elaborate single takes, the camera moving all over the place. The set design is on a whole other level compared to Sono’s previous films as well, with so many elaborately designed locations for each tribe. And Sono never takes a moment to breathe, whipping back and forth between places, stuffing each one with as many extras and activity as possible, all while putting the camera right in the middle of it. It’s exhilarating, but at the same time incredibly exhausting

Trying to watch Tokyo Tribe for its story, nothing more than a standard gangster epic with a message about community, won’t maximize the amount of shock and joy Sono throws around on-screen. It’s the quirks and little moments that work best. Like Big Buppa’s son having a room where people act as his furniture. Or a massive karate fighter wishing someone a happy birthday as they punch them 50 feet in the air (one of the fighter’s only lines: “Take me! To! A sauna!”). Or an army tank driving around Tokyo blowing shit up. Tokyo Tribe is full of these kinds of insane, world-building moments, most of them hilariously original and bonkers beyond belief.

And even though Sono’s restlessness can get tiring at times, it doesn’t take away from the utter brilliance of Tokyo Tribe. No one injects more insanity and ideas into their films on a moment-by-moment basis the way Sono does. It was hard to imagine how Sono could outdo his previous film Why Don’t You Play in Hell?, but with Tokyo Tribe he’s outdone himself completely, and by successfully taking on musicals he feels unstoppable. With a propulsive, catchy score, Tokyo Tribe doesn’t have to try to be energetic. It breathes vivaciousness. Tokyo Tribe will leave viewers dazed, assaulted, and mortified, but by the end they’ll be begging for more.

A version of this review was originally published as part of our coverage of the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival.

Split almost perfectly down its center, Lenny Abrahamson‘s Room, based on the bestselling novel by Emma Donoghue, is equal parts heart-stopping thriller and emotionally visceral drama. Few films are as effectively stomach-churning while sustaining emotional connectedness in so compelling a manner. This is what is possible when a novel is perfectly translated to screen and, like Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl screenplay adaptation last year, holds up a keen argument for authors adapting their own work. A far cry from Abrahamson’s decidedly weirder film entry of last year, Frank, Room is an insular (literally) account of a young woman, Ma (Brie Larson, being amazing), doing her best to raise her five-year-old son Jack (Jacob Tremblay, almost stealing the show) in the tiny one-room shack where they are held captive. Pushed to her breaking point and fearing for her son’s safety, Ma is finally driven to enact a harrowing plan to help her son escape and experience the world outside of “room.”

Abrahamson spends the film’s first act focused on the intricacies of life in a tiny room and the inventive and loving ways Ma has devised to keep her son healthy and happy. She cooks him meals on a hot plate, breastfeeds him for added sustenance, and leads him through yoga and running exercises around the room. Through expert use of Jack’s first person narrative scattered throughout the film, we see “room” through his five-year-old eyes. The toilet, the chairs, the television and the wardrobe he often sleeps in all take on distinct and special characteristics as they make up the entirety of Jack’s universe and everything he’s ever known. But most important of all is Ma, and the bond between mother and son is strong and almost feral.

In watching their lives it becomes clear that in the seven years Ma has spent in “room,” and the five that Jack has, a routine has developed. Each night Ma tucks Jack away into the wardrobe, doing her best to shelter him from her captor, Old Nick (Sean Bridgers), when he makes his nightly visit to Ma to take advantage of her. Jack knows the drill, but curiosity gets the better of him one night and he climbs out to have a look at the only other human being he’s ever seen. Ma awakes to find Nick talking to Jack and reacts with a fierce protectiveness. She pays the price and decides once and for all something must be done.

The plan for escape in the film is equal in anxiety to any great heist film, more so because it’s experienced mostly through Jack’s scared understanding of what he is doing. The entire plan rests on him to act, but more than that it relies on him accepting this new truth his mother is revealing to him that there is an entire universe outside of “room” and he needs to choose to leave everything he knows and loves, including his mother. There isn’t an audience alive that won’t be gripping their armrests as the escape scene plays out, and without revealing too much about how the film continues, suffice it to say that Ma and Jack face an entirely new set of demons once they are out in the real world.

The intimate nature of the narrative is what especially allows for the emotional connection one feels for Ma and Jack. They represent the fear everyone shares at being violated so profoundly by another human. One can’t help but imagine what they would attempt or feel in a similar situation. How can anyone prepare for such a thing? Equally so, how can we predict the physical and emotional effects and how they will manifest in the years following such trauma? Jack shows us the resilient nature of children in the way he begins to accept the new world he is experiencing, while Ma is haunted by the world she knew before her kidnapping and how it can never be the same. And both have to get used to a world full of judgment and expectation and an inability to truly understand their experience.

Obviously the film’s writing is what sets it up for success, but Larson and Tremblay’s performances are what elevate this film to perfection and sure-fire award candidacy. Larson manages to juggle portraying an abused woman, a fierce mother, and a PTSD-afflicted young woman who wasn’t allowed to complete her own childhood. Tremblay, and his perfect little lips, expresses the entire range of a five-year-old: wonder, excitement, stubbornness, fear, and child-like unadulterated love. His courage is astounding and the chemistry between Larson and himself is palpable.

There are a few unexplored story threads in the second half that leave us wanting, most especially between Ma and her father played by William H. Macy. And, of course, it’s difficult for there to be a truly satisfying stopping point to the film, as one becomes so attached and invested in the characters it’s natural to wish we could see how their entire lives play out. The film’s lens stays close on its subjects, contributing to the claustrophobic but intimate relationship of its lead characters. The cinematography is a wash of blue and green but manages not to be depressing with its drab scheme.

Room is certainly among the year’s essential viewing and while some may be quick to label it a “difficult watch,” such a description neglects the ultimately life-affirming and passionately affecting story told. Abrahamson has done an amazing job in inviting viewers to consider one of those potentialities no one likes to think about, engaging us with a deeply personal and fantastically told tale of survival and familial bond.

Note: This is a review of an earlier cut of The Forbidden Room that screened at Sundance and Berlin. It has since been cut down by approximately ten minutes.

For Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson, film isn’t just a thing people make. It’s a living thing. A universe existing right next to ours, where time and space collapse into a giant stew of celluloid and pixels. There’s no describing The Forbidden Room, Guy Maddin’s latest film which he co-directed with Johnson. I can merely state facts about it, but to actually attempt to describe the experience of watching it? That’s a fool’s errand because the only way to know about The Forbidden Room is to experience it for yourself. Is it Guy Maddin’s best work to date? Probably. Is it a masterpiece? Definitely. Maddin, who’s known for having a progressive and spiritual perspective towards cinema, has made what might be the purest representation of his mindset on film to date.

How did The Forbidden Room get here? You could say it all started back at the invention of film itself (for dramatic purposes), or five years ago (for practical purposes). Maddin created an installation called Hauntings that had him researching abandoned projects by master filmmakers and re-creating scenes from these “lost” films. Eventually, Maddin’s interests turned from the figurative to the literal; he began looking (with Johnson) into real films that are forever lost, either destroyed or unintentionally abandoned. After researching these films, Maddin began remaking them, recruiting a cast of big, international arthouse names (Charlotte Rampling, Mathieu Amalric, Roy Dupuis, Ariane Labed, Udo Kier, Geraldine Chaplin, Maria de Medeiros and lots more) to come in and “channel” the spirits of these lost films, acting them out in a series of short film remakes. How do you remake something you haven’t seen? Watch The Forbidden Room and find out.

So what is The Forbidden Room about? Rather than go for an episodic structure, Maddin and Johnson link every story together through a nesting doll structure that goes so deep it makes a film like Inception look like a pop-up book. It all starts with an old man in a bathrobe (Louis Negin, who winds up in almost every “remake” in some sort of role) giving advice on how to take a bath. The camera then goes under the bath water, where it reveals a submarine full of trapped men. Their captain is missing, their cargo of blasting jelly can explode at any minute, and their oxygen supply is low, requiring them to suck on pancakes to try and get oxygen from the air pockets. Suddenly, a lumberjack (Dupuis) finds his way onto the submarine, and when the men ask how he got there, the film flashes back to tell his story: while chopping trees in the forest, he decides to rescue the beautiful Margot (Clara Furey) from The Red Wolves, described as “the most feared forest bandits in all of Holstein-Schleswig.” The lumberjack goes off to rescue Margot who then has a dream where she’s an amnesiac bar singer, a bar where an indescribable singer performs a song about a man (Kier) obsessed with grabbing asses, which transitions into a dreaming volcano, and then a newspaper article within the volcano’s dream, and then the inside of an x-ray of a pelvis, and then…

The amount of transitions, digressions and leveling up and down within storylines just goes on and on, to the point where trying to make heads or tails of anything loses its meaning. Everything co-exists and stands alone. High art and low art combine into one. Dreams, memories, fantasies and nightmares weave in and out of each other. Maddin and Johnson put the bulk of their efforts into the post-production process, taking the digitally shot footage and dousing it with every possible imperfection or antiquated method from both analog and digital eras: two-strip Technicolor, warped stock, burn marks, title cards, data moshing, colour dyes, and whatever else they could pull out from this cinematic stew they conjured up. And through all of this madness, Maddin and Johnson have created an exhaustive and hilarious masterwork. The sort of film where a hysterical title card like “The skull-faced man and his gang of Skeletal Insurance Defrauders” gets lost in the shuffle of the seemingly endless ideas thrown on-screen from start to end. It’s a film that has endless rewatch value because it’s impossible to remember every detail from it. It’s one of the most perfect collections of imperfections ever made. It is, quite simply, The Forbidden Room.

Originally published as part of our coverage for the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.

Recently, the staff here at Way Too Indie put together a list of independent films we thought Alfred Hitchcock might have made if The Master of Suspense had come up in the Kickstarter Era. There were some great choices, including Mulholland Dr. and Stoker, while my pick was The Usual Suspects. It’s too bad that assignment came before I had the chance to screen Queen of Earth. The psychological drama not only invokes Hitch, it screams Hitch.

Catherine (Elisabeth Moss) is a young woman on the ropes, having recently lost her father and been dumped by her boyfriend. Reeling from these impactful events, she looks to get away from it all by spending a week with Ginny (Katherine Waterston), an old and dear friend whose parents have a gorgeous and secluded lakeside vacation home. The retreat, however, proves less than helpful. Memories of happier times at the vacation home—times when Catherine’s (now-ex) boyfriend James (Kentucker Audley) was also a guest—surface to wrack Catherine’s conscience. Agitating things further are Ginny’s passive/aggressive behavior towards Catherine and the perpetual presence of Ginny’s neighbor/plaything Rich (Patrick Fugit), who takes a peculiar antagonistic approach when dealing with Catherine. Difficult memories and constant defensiveness take a grinding toll on Catherine’s already frail psyche, driving her deeper into despair and paranoia.

Queen of Earth is far more than just an exercise in observing one woman’s psyche slowly unravel, although it’s certainly that. The film opens at Catherine’s emotional Ground Zero; dismissed by a cheating boyfriend while reeling from the loss of her father. Writer/director Alex Ross Perry’s extreme close-ups on Moss are startling, revealing bloodshot eyes and a reddened nose and makeup ruined beyond repair, all from a recent (and clearly heavy) crying jag.

From here, Perry avoids the worn path of a woman making bad decisions while in an emotional fog. He also avoids presenting a woman who attempts to find herself after a lifetime of being defined by men. Instead, the filmmaker skillfully presents Catherine’s gradual decline within the framework of a larger, but quite intricate, story about friendship and the wages of the sin of pride. The relationship between Catherine and Ginny is strong and certainly has positive roots, but there is something more going on between them.

In addition to a terrific story, the film has many technical strengths, beginning with pop-up flashbacks that vanish almost as quickly as they appear. These brief scenes are critical to establishing the story’s foundation, even as it builds upon itself. It isn’t necessarily parallel storytelling, more a form of context to the present-day action. With masterful editing by Robert Greene and Peter Levinto, these flashbacks take the story between present day and about a year prior. It’s an unsettling technique, but it’s through these glimpses into the past—moments seen through both Catherine and Ginny’s eyes—that we’re allowed a comparison and contrast of how the two friends have changed in a year, and how their core attitudes have not.

Gloriously filmed in 16mm by cinematographer Sean Price Williams and set to a bare, haunting score by Keegan DeWitt, Queen of Earth channels the psychological dramas of the ’60s and ’70s, right down to spot-on title cards in soft pink cursive that mark each day that passes in the week-long story.

The presentation and aesthetics of the film fire on all cylinders, and at the heart of the film is a pair of performances simultaneously different yet complementary. Both are so very good.

As Catherine, Moss is turned loose, her confidence as an actress affording her the luxury of fearlessness. She manages the varying aspects of Catherine expertly, playing a woman freshly scorned and wearing every emotion on her tear-drenched sleeve; playing coy but paranoid conducting mysterious phone calls at random times during the day; and at other times a socially awkward introvert disarmed by an unexpected party. Moss delivers in amazing ways. Conversely, Waterston, as Ginny, is incredibly restrained. Her calm hostess to Moss’s unhinged basket case is at all times cool, almost aloof, with something of a sinister passive/aggressive treatment of Catherine that is captivating.

The tale ends with a devilish ending. To say more would be criminal, but I will add that a second watch of the film—with a full understanding of the ending—is highly recommended, providing a chance to catch the little clues that may be missed during a first watch.

What makes Queen of Earth so Hitchcockian isn’t Catherine’s plummet into madness, but rather how her spiral starts and how it accelerates. Setting it within the company of friends and against a placid backdrop reminds me of something Hitch would do as well, as comfortable surroundings only make the discomfort of psychological drama that much more uncomfortable. As for the roots of Catherine’s madness, I won’t say they are MacGuffins, but the loss of her father and end of a romance are clearly little more than starting points for something much more subtle and far more interesting.

An actor earns serious credit when they not only perform incredibly in a role but perform it in a way that makes audiences believe no one else could have possibly played it better. Not to overly gush about a film others have already gushed enough over, but I was oozing with said respect when exiting Grandma. Not only is it a well-written film with a rare and fiercely defined main character, but its title role fits its perfectly casted actor, Lily Tomlin, in perfect symbiosis. Playing this role at this point in her career is perfect timing, and Paul Weitz casting and utilizing her unique talents is an example of the art of directing at its finest. Though comedy might be the safest genre for allowing septuagenarians to shine (though Grandma is more a part of that ambiguous sub-genre of dramedy), it’s films like this that prove there is a trove of older actors who, in addition to the talent they already bring, provide another level of performance that, when given the chance, can absolutely blow us away.

This secret reserve of talent—likely derived straight from life experience—is something Tomlin displays in abundance in Grandma. A taciturn and grieving widow, Tomlin plays Elle Reid, a feminist poet and movement leader, still revered if not much remembered from her glory days. A year and a half has passed since her partner Violet has died from cancer, and her relationship with a much younger woman, Olivia (Judy Greer), is ending and she deals with it with the same cutting rigidity with which she faces all of life’s challenges, telling Olivia she doesn’t love her, and to leave her key on the table. Elle hardly has time to actually process this breakup when her teenaged granddaughter Sage (the curly-haired goddess Julia Garner) shows up on her front door, pregnant and in need of funds for an abortion.

Elle does her due diligence as a grandma—complaining about the price of an abortion these days—and also as a wizened woman, asking Sage if she’s thought through the decision since she’s likely to think of it at some point every day for the rest of her life, but never tries to talk her out of it. Instead, she grabs the keys to her vintage Dodge and agrees to help Sage scare up the $600 she needs by 5:30 that afternoon. As Elle attempts to collect on old debts and the goodwill of friends, more of her varied and complicated life is revealed. Laverne Cox is a tattoo artist buddy who tells of Elle’s kindhearted gift of loaning her money to fix a botched transgender boob-job. Elizabeth Pena is coffee shop owner who puts Elle in her place by offering $50 for some of her old first edition hardbacks, including The Feminine Mystique (and Sage wonders aloud if the book has anything to do with The X-Men). Elle challenges Sage’s sensibilities, teaching her along the way by standing up to her deadbeat boyfriend when Sage won’t (hilariously kicking the teenager’s ass) and making a scene in a coffee shop when the proprietor asks her to quiet down when discussing abortion.

While clearly pro-choice, the film doesn’t especially try to conventionalize or even trivialize abortion but instead bring it into colloquial terms. Sage’s decision is treated with gravity and respect. It’s even given an interesting dual-perspective by another character in the film, who expresses the sadness an abortion once brought them with sincerity and dignity. The crux of the film lies within a scene between Elle and her one-time husband Karl (Sam Elliott, also absolutely shining), he an unfortunate casualty of Elle being gay at a time when no one was discussing such things and thus part of her path of destruction in her youth.  They chit-chat about lovers and grandchildren, roll a doobie together, and then go on to have a fiercely charged and emotionally revealing series of exchanges that perfectly expresses the complexity of real relationships, the many forms of love, and the way our decisions shape us and stay with us as we mature.

Paul Weitz is a wonder in being able to capture saturated morsels of the different humor associated with different age ranges and genders. In American Pie he nailed the adolescent male mind without demeaning it, and here he’s traveled the length of the spectrum (galaxy?) to home in on the perfectly evolved humor of an aging widowed lesbian academic. I’ve certainly never heard anyone insult another by calling them a “writer-in -residence” but the joke is among the sharpest of the film. All involved should certainly remain in the minds of voters when awards season rolls around.

Filled with laughs, realistic love, and a freedom to emote, Grandma is as cathartic as it is hilarious. Even while seeing the pain that comes from a lifetime filled with loss and experience, the wisdom and humor of a lifetime’s experience is given equal merit. It’s enough to make being a grandma look like the coolest job out there, and a reason to look forward to advancing through our years.

A version of this review was originally published as part of our Tribeca 2015 coverage.

Watch enough independent films and it becomes hard to avoid looking for “the next one”—the film that, on the surface, might look like any another genre entry in a long list of low-budget genre entries, but manages to rocket above the rest with something else, something special. Some titles have already done it in 2015, like Appropriate Behavior (romantic comedy), Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter (drama), and Spring (horror). It’s time to add a thriller to the top shelf of indie standouts: Alex R. Johnson‘s transfixing slow-burner, Two Step.

James (Skyy Moore) is a kid with a rough life behind him and nothing all that promising ahead. Already orphaned (his parents died) and recently kicked out of college, the young man pays a visit to his grandmother, only to meet more tragedy: she is in mid-stroke when he arrives, after which she soon passes. Even with his late grandma’s house and a pretty decent inheritance to his name, James is young man with nothing to lose. The only person in his life is his grandma’s middle-aged neighbor, Dot (Beth Broderick).

Webb (James Landry Hébert) is a felon doing time when, via some little phone-scamming techniques from inside, he tricks an old man into believing he is his grandson and needs to send money to bail him out. Once out, Webb shows up at his girlfriend Amy’s (Ashley Spillers) house. He wants to see her, but he also wants his half of the take from a previous job. Amy wants no part of Webb and flees her own home the first chance she gets.

Desperate for his money, a lot of which he owes to shady liquor store owner Duane (Jason Douglas), Webb decides to scam a previous mark: James’ grandma. When she doesn’t answer or return his calls, he shows up at her house only to find James there. Surprise quickly turns violent and in minutes, James finds himself Webb’s captive. The situation only grows more desperate and more violent from there.

Two Step is not only “the next one,” it’s something else entirely. Writer/director Johnson is an incredibly disciplined storyteller and filmmaker. As the latter, he deconstructs the thriller genre and rebuilds it with a rich genuineness of events, surrounded by intricate layers of character and relationship development that a viewer usually doesn’t find in a home invasion film.

That genuineness is found mostly in what Johnson doesn’t do. He shows great restraint with events, actions, and characters (and their relationships), constantly avoiding what is so often the expected path in films like this, while at the same time maintaining every ounce of believability in every action, reaction, outcome, and ripple effect. The challenge for me is that to offer an example of any of these decisions would be giving a micro-spoiler—not of the entire film, of course, but of these special moments that consistently and refreshingly surprise.

Johnson also constructs clever parallels between the pair of trios led by James and Webb. Over the course of their respective lives, James has been a victim and Webb a victimizer (most especially in the moment their lives converge). The women in their lives are opposites as well. Webb’s Amy is young and troubled and wants nothing to do with him. James’ Dot is mature, wise, and—no matter the newness of their friendship—only wants to help James. Finally, James and Webb each have something of a patriarch in their lives. For Webb, it’s Duane, shady and full of nothing but cynicism. For James that duty falls on his grandma’s attorney Ray (Brady Coleman), an upholder, not a breaker, of the law. There are even peripheral masculine figures in the opposite camps—hired muscle (Johnny Snyder) for Duane and a cop with a crush on Dot (Barry Tubb).

These supporting characters may travel along this parallel road with James and Webb, but it’s them doing the traveling along a road  potholed with desperation. For James, it’s born out of stupidity—his criminal actions, his violent ways, his poor decisions. For James, it’s born out of helplessness—his parents dead, his grandma dead, himself a captive in his own home.

Ultimately, Johnson’s brilliance comes from writing a smart story within the framework of his chosen genre, not letting the genre—and the tired entries that came before—dictate how his story should proceed or how his characters should develop.

As a director, Johnson is just as good as he is a storyteller, if not better. Despite the story’s start (the first act is more slow than deliberate), there is real technical excellence in Johnson’s direction. It’s an incredibly crafted film. Every shot is effective, efficient, impactful, and captivating. Every shot is also a visual joy thanks to cinematographer Andrew Lillen, whose lensing is gorgeous, particularly what he does with natural sunlight. Rounding out this technical excellence is the acting, and almost everyone in this cast of character actors, newcomers, and unknowns delivers big, led by Hébert, who dazzles as he wields his reckless power over the helpless Moore.

A lot of movies can grab you by the lapels and give you a good shake to get your attention. Two Step isn’t that obvious. Instead, after staring you down, the film slowly glides around you, grips you tightly by the back of your neck, and demands your attention.

It has been 70 years since World War II ended, and yet the subject, its periphery, and its aftermath remain a collective fertile ground for modern filmmakers. From documentaries to adaptations to fictionalized dramas, the war that was fought and won by the greatest generation continues to mesmerize people on both sides of the camera. The latest dramatic entry to leverage World War II is Christian Petzold‘s superb drama, Phoenix.

Nelly Lenz (Nina Hoss) is a concentration camp survivor who has returned to Berlin after the war, but that survival has come with a cost: her face has been horribly disfigured. Only her confidante, Lene Winter (Nina Kunzendorf), knows she is even alive (the rest of her immediate family is dead). When Nelly pursues reconstructive surgery, she is insistent on remaining as true to her original appearance as possible. Her goal is to find, and reunite with, her husband, Johnny (Ronald Zehrfeld). This is despite Lene’s suggestion that Johnny might have been the one to turn her over to the Nazis in exchange for his own freedom.

Nelly remains undaunted, but when she finally finds her husband, he doesn’t recognize her; her appearance is different enough that there is a resemblance to her past self and nothing more. More alarming, she realizes she doesn’t recognize the person he has become. When he asks her to pose as his wife in an effort to claim an inheritance, Nelly becomes as scarred emotionally as her face was scarred physically.

With cowriter Harun Farocki, director Christian Petzold adapts Hubert Monteilhet’s novel “Le retour des cendres” (“Return from the Ashes”) into a haunting film about love, betrayal, and how one woman’s identity becomes the ultimate casualty of war.

There is a pall of desperation that hangs heavy over Nelly Lenz. She is a woman reeling from what she has been through, and desperate to cling to any semblance of her past. She cannot get back the family she once belonged to; they are dead. She cannot recoup the money she has lost; it is gone. She cannot reclaim her dignity; that was left in a camp that is better left forgotten. She’s even in denial about her faith. The only thing she has left that can define her are her looks and her husband. One face and one person. Without either of those, as she so sorrowfully puts it after visiting a bombed-out building from her past, “I no longer exist.”

That Johnny doesn’t recognize her anyway is the diabolical twist of Phoenix: neither her face nor her husband (or who she thought her husband was) can ever be quite what they used to be. There’s a resemblance in both cases, but they are ghostly.

Petzold is clever to not show what Nelly looked like before her ordeal. This, coupled with whatever the ravages of imprisonment may have done to her body, makes acceptable the fact her husband doesn’t recognize her. Mostly. The notion troubled me, to be honest. I wondered how a man—a man who has no confirmation his wife is dead—could see a woman who so closely resembles her that he would use her in an inheritance scam, yet not wonder if it could possibly be her? The question is answered with a wonderful subtly that I dare not reveal here. The final scene, one of deep, sincere, incredible drama, not only brings the film to a remarkable close, it solidifies who Nelly is and that she knows who she is now. Other than that final reveal, the film simmers but never boils, which at times can be frustrating.

Hoss is tremendous here—a perfect blend of haunted and hopeful, letting those two things slowly shift in dominance as her character’s circumstances evolve. Her scenes in the film’s second half are better still, as she is forced to further struggle with identity, being reduced to pretending to be someone that is learning to be her, all while coping with her husband’s lack of recognition, and all in the name of an inheritance scam. Her performance is devastating.

If every WWII or WWII-adjacent film is going to be this caliber, filmmakers can leverage the war for the rest of time if they want. Phoenix is an exceptional film thanks to strength of character and might of performance, and it shouldn’t be missed.

Phoenix opens theatrically July 24th. 

For years, the violence and aggression of Mexican drug cartels have made headlines across America, and by the looks of it this violence has grown progressively worse as more cartels sprout up, clash for territory, and vie for power. Still, few films have spotlighted this conflict as a subject, and while TV has crossed paths with the topic, it’s usually never more than in passing. This year sees several films looking south toward the border, including Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming Sicario and the powerful new documentary Cartel Land.

Cartel Land opens around a smoke-filled barrel, with a group of Mexican meth cookers carefully mixing a large batch of the product. And while it’s hard not to be terrified by their ease and comfort crafting such a toxic substance, a voice over explains that these men have to work here to support their families and stay on the good side of the cartels. They are simply trying to survive, and this stark, gorgeously shot scene sets the tone for what follows. Cartel Land chronicles the near-parallel lives of two men, one Mexican and one American, who pick up arms against the cartels, fighting a war that they believe their governments have forgotten, only to be vilified by the people they are laying down their lives to defend.

In the Mexican state of Michoacan, “El Doctor” Jose Mireles begins a tireless effort to battle the cartels eroding his small town. The militia he forms becomes an overnight success, slowly running the Knights Templar cartel out of one town after another. But as their militia numbers grow, their reliance on Mireles’ charisma and leadership quickly leads to internal strife.

A thousand miles away, across the border in Arizona, Tim “Nailer” Foley, an American vet, founded the paramilitary group Arizona Border Patrol. The group’s original purpose was stopping the steady stream of immigrants crossing the border, but they soon realize that the true problem lies with the same vicious cartels smuggling drugs through the rugged mountains.

Over and again, Cartel Land touches on the senseless violence and countless lives taken for next to nothing by the cartels. Testimonials by fear-stricken people serve as reminders as to why Mireles and Foley continue to fight, even as their power grows and the media and government tarnish them. Director Matthew Heineman, who embedded himself deeply and survived fire fights to capture the film’s footage, builds a compelling and painful picture of two men setting their sights on being the change necessary to save their homes from violence and corruption.

Not only does Cartel Land succeed in sheer bravado of filmmaking and powerful human narrative, it’s a masterfully well-crafted picture. Heineman took home awards for Best Director and Best Cinematography at Sundance, and every frame shows why he deserved to win. Lensed with all the dust and sun expected from Arizona and Mexico, the film is all the more biting for its unflinching nature and the beauty with which all the violence is captured. In one scene, as two known killers are caught and attacked by dozens of raging townspeople, the unwavering depiction of these vilified monsters turning into cowering, terrified men is painful to watch.

One of Heineman’s best tricks here is stripping the audience of a cipher, making it difficult to figure out who to root for. The hard, obvious answer is no one. But watching so many men attempt to do good, only to fail so earnestly, helps, even if only in a small way, to make some sense of the cyclical nature of the war raging in these remote towns and villages.

Only late in the third act does Cartel Land waver, as it tries to wrap up the loose ends of its complex stories, but it nevertheless remains engaging, even as some of its subtleties go out the window, forcing the audience to play catch up with some convoluted but essential details. Unbelievably gorgeous, Cartel Land is an important, complex, and towering portrait of two men raging against the lawless terror inflicted on thousands of innocent lives, and the imposing system that traps all of them.

Cartel Land is now playing in select theatres across the US, and opens July 10th in Toronto at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema.

In Carlos Marques-Marcet’s debut feature 10,000 KM, the title refers to the distance which now separates a couple after a job opportunity forces them to face the challenges of dating remotely. Marques-Marcet, who previously edited the equally subtle relationship film It Felt Like Love, proves that long distance relationships are just as difficult now as they were before smartphones, the Internet, and social media made it easy to stay constantly connected. Instead of concerning itself with elaborate backstories or uplifting messages, 10,000 KM immediately focuses in on a pivotal point in an intimate relationship. Authentic presentation and relatable situations makes the film easy to sympathize with and difficult to look away from.

Alex (Natalia Tena) and Sergi (David Verdaguer) have recently decided they’re ready to have children after dating and living in Barcelona together for seven years. But fate has other plans when Alex gets offered a once-in-a-lifetime job opportunity. The catch? Accepting this residency position means Alex will be living in Los Angeles 10,000 KM away from Sergi for an entire year. Naturally, the decision doesn’t come easy for the couple, but eventually they agree it’s too important to turn down. Besides, one year apart can’t undo the seven they’ve already shared right? All of this (and more) happens with an impressive 20-minute shot that remarkably captures a whirlwind of emotions without a single cut.

In the beginning of their long distance stint, the adrenaline of starting a new chapter in their lives fuel Alex and Sergi’s excitement. Alex can hardly contain herself during a virtual tour of her new apartment to Sergi, exchanging laughs and making fun of Americans’ love of Ikea and everything king sized. Though like most new things, this initial excitement eventually diminishes. It’s not long before the sound of incoming Skype calls become a burden instead of a treat and frequent photos of L.A. start feeling like twisting knives. The two lovers find themselves growing apart when conversations never seem to be on the same page and become less and less meaningful.

In a similar fashion to Spike Jonze’s Her, Marques-Marcet explores how technology is unable to compensate for physical presence. Skype allows Alex and Sergi to live on separate continents yet still communicate visually, go on virtual dates (and other romantic gestures), and even cook with each other. Using Google Maps, Alex explores nearby neighborhoods and shares her favorite new spots in the city with Sergi.

On the flip side, Marques-Marcet illustrates how technology can have a negative effect on relationships. Communicating through text can be slow and frustrating and Facebook creeping grants an uncomfortably close vantage for partners. 10,000 KM also makes a keen observation that data centers are where many relationships physically exist in the digital era. Despite a wealth of information and instant communication being just a click away, the film reminds us there is no substitution for physical contact.

While the majority of 10,000 KM takes place in just two apartments, the film avoids feeling claustrophobic using a wide range of technology to explore new areas. Also, the film runs the risk of being too simple and monotonous with its minimalistic setup, but tremendous performances from Tena and Verdaguer provide enough emotional substance to overcome the modest plot. Both leads deserved their acting awards from SXSW, their convincing portrayals helped 10,000 KM avoid the relationship clichés often shown in movies. Marques-Marcet knocks one out of the park in his feature debut, providing an emotionally powerful look into long distance relationships that few are able to capture.

Originally published on Oct. 8 2014

It’s a strange realization to come to that more and more from here on out, documentary films will pretty much make themselves. The historical equivalent to picking up the diaries of the deceased and publishing them; now we need only piece together the digitized documentation of people’s lives. This process is easiest when it comes to celebrities, barraged as they are by media attention, documented far beyond what they probably would wish for themselves, immortalized in the camera phones of the masses. Director Asif Kapadia scarcely supplements the hours of pre-existing film of Amy Winehouse in his documentary, Amy. Amy would be turning 32 this year, and because of her age—and her immense fame—there are hours of video featuring the talented singer from a young age all the way up until her untimely death. Wisely Kapadia focuses his documentarian eye—or should I say ear?—on Winehouse’s musical ability. While much of her best work was steeped in the pain of her experiences, what Kapadia makes clear is that it was likely the pain and abuse from those closest to her, not her stardom, that would eventually lead to her demise. This revelation makes the pain of losing so large a talent painfully fresh.

The film begins with Winehouse, aged 14, singing a beyond-her-years soulful rendition of “Happy Birthday” to a girlfriend. Her talent is obvious. She feigns some self-consciousness in front of the camera, but her natural showmanship can’t be denied. From there she is captured on camera phones and digital recorders at her first gigs, playing in bars, on car trips with her friends and her first manager, Nick Shymansky. Very little is professional footage. Once they get into the years where she was picking up some fame, there are a few TV spots and formal interviews with her, but not many. Interestingly, what they reveal is a girl who cared very little for what the public had to say. In one especially hilarious interview the camera shows Winehouse, eyes rolling, as a reporter tries to compare her work with another popular artist. Winehouse’s priorities were always clear and evident. She wanted to make her music. Just as clear throughout the film are Winehouse’s addictions, to both substances and unhealthy people.

Kapadia did 100 or so interviews to capture the complete story of Winehouse, who ran in a variety of circles, famous and non-famous. None of the interviews are shown on camera, but they act as narration for the film. The clear voice of influence in Winehouse’s life is that of her father, Mitch Winehouse. He speaks about his affair and eventual divorce of Winehouse’s mother. She speaks at one point of her father’s absence, her tone implying life was better off without him. Later footage makes it clear just how much his departure affected her. In the song that would eventually shoot her to stardom, “Rehab,” Winehouse’s lyrics flash across the screen “They tried to make me go to rehab… but if my daddy thinks I’m fine…” Throughout the film Winehouse’s lyrics are featured on-screen, the truth of her life seeping through each of them. “Rehab” is no different, with Amy’s friends describing the first time they tried to get her help for her alcoholism. She would only agree if her father told her to. He said she was fine, so she didn’t go. A pivotal moment before fame would sweep into her life, lessening the influence of those who cared for her.

The rollercoaster ride of Winehouse’s fame, her stormy and obsessive relationship with former husband Blake Fielder, her six Grammy award wins, all play out, merging into the moments the audience most remembers of her. Her shocked expression winning her first Grammy. Her TV performances. Her tiny body growing thinner with each magazine cover. It’s all excellent editing by Chris King (Senna, Exit Through the Gift Shop) who manages to take what is mostly shaky unprofessional footage of Winehouse and stretch it into a film. Kapadia and King hold on Amy’s expressions as her friends and family talk through her path of self-destruction and they act as the inner monologue we’ll never be able to hear from Winehouse directly. Juliette Ashby and Lauren Gilbert, Winehouse’s childhood friends, provide the best picture of Amy Winehouse the person and it’s their regrets and passion that bring the most emotion in the end.

The saddest and most compelling theme of the film, though, is the real example of the effects of an absent father on a growing girl. Not to place blame, but the film weaves its story firmly around Amy and Mitch’s relationship. Kapadia chose the right thread to run with. The argument that many of Winehouse’s issues stemmed from the all-too-real psychological impact of the lack of positive male affirmation and attention early in life fits her tragic tale. Her adoration—addiction even—to Fielder is further testament to the long-lasting effects. What first feels like it will be the story of fame-induced-ruin is actually a cautionary tale around a prevalent problem. Compounded, of course, by fame but rooted in the significance of having a support system with the right intentions.

There are a number of scenes at the end of the film where the strobe lights of paparazzi are disorienting and uncomfortable. And this isn’t the only way Kapadia seeks to get the audience to feel the tension of Amy Winehouse’s life. In Amy, he has crafted one of the most sincere depictions of the truth of celebrity and the truth that it’s not always fame that creates personal demons. No one who sees this film will leave wishing for notoriety.

There’s a certain sense of inevitability in the death of Amy Winehouse. Those who remember it all say the same thing, that it was both shocking and unsurprising at the same time. Kapadia poses the question to us all: How could someone watched so closely, so obviously at risk even, die practically before our eyes? And what is our complicity in her fate? No matter your level of admiration for her music, this is the message that makes Amy essential viewing.

Mention a film set in the 1980s featuring hopelessly in love teens from opposite worlds, throw in a unique best friend for good measure, and most people might point to something from the John Hughes canon (the Hughes-penned Pretty in Pink, perhaps). “Not so fast,” lovers of foreign indies might say. From director Eran Riklis comes a film that meets the description above, and even offers a hint of that Hughesian charm. The comparisons end there, though, as what Riklis brings is far richer than anything starring the Brat Pack—a sublime film about the glory of young love, the challenge of religious identity, the pressures of family, and the despair caused by an unforgiving geopolitical climate.

Intellectually exceptional since childhood, Arab-born Eyad (Tawfeek Barhom) has been afforded the chance to attend the prestigious Jerusalem Arts and Science Academy. However, the opportunity for him is bittersweet. While he will receive the best education available in his corner of the world, he will also be the rare Arab in a school full of Israelis. The conflict of a new kid in school, something normally prevalent in teenage school settings, is exponentially worse in a geographic environment that uses map lines to define hatred.

It isn’t all bad. Expecting to be alone in his academic pursuits, Eyad finds an unlikely friend in Jonathan (Michael Moshonov), an Israeli classmate suffering from muscular dystrophy. The young men become fast friends when they find a common ground: mocking the very hatred the world says they should have for each other. Eyad eventually becomes a regular fixture in Jonathan’s home, and an invaluable help to Jonathan’s mother (Yaël Abecassis).

Soon, the beautiful Israeli student Naomi (Daniel Kitsis) catches Eyad’s eye, and eventually the two share a powerful, secret love for each other that blossoms and strengthens over the coming semesters. Still, no matter the might of that love, and no matter the faint reminder of John Hughes (sans pop soundtrack), Riklis, working from Sayed Kashua’s script, summons strong notions of William Shakespeare; these lovers are no less passionate and no less star-crossed than a couple of kids named Capulet and Montague. In the end, though, those sharp, unyielding map lines and the tensions between their cultures may be more than their relationship can bear.

Most impressive about A Borrowed Identity is how Riklis succeeds in striking a deft balance among the competing issues happening throughout the film, and how he does so completely without exploitation. This is a film that practically begs for hand-wringing moments of high melodrama, but Riklis never takes the bait. Consider the global military conflict constantly humming in the background. Riklis leaves it in the background so it is always onscreen, but never overtly so. He even finds a little humor in it. The same applies to the breathless romance (aided by wonderfully enchanting chemistry between the leads); Eyad and Naomi work through their hurdles naturally instead of pointing at them and flailing the way other dramas might. None of this is to downplay love or war, but to treat them as equally strong forces in the lives of these young people and their families.

The family dynamic is another well-measured juxtaposition, which also includes Jonathan and his mother, who become another family for Eyad. But before all that even happens, the film opens with a considerably lengthy set-up of Eyad as a child, establishing the boy’s intellect as well as adding some background information about Eyad’s family. They’re important, nice touches, but not overly critical ones. It’s highly entertaining, and indicative of Riklis’ commitment to story.

Also humming throughout the film (like the war) are Eyad’s battles with bigotry and his successes in spite of it, as well as his own evolution and maturation as a person. Riklis is so adept at managing all of this, and at knowing what the perfect tone should be from scene to scene, that as the story unfolds, not only is there no melodrama, there isn’t even a gaudy WOW moment to get the story to another place. Simpler moments are always strongest because Riklis has structured the film so soundly.

Somehow, some way, filmmaker Maya Forbes has made mental illness adorable. Actually, that “somehow” is in truth a someone. Mark Ruffalo stars in Forbes’ true-to-life family story Infinitely Polar Bear as Cam Stuart, an eccentric, manic-depressive husband to a black working woman, Maggie (Zoe Saldana), and two young girls, Amelia (Imogene Wolodarsky, Forbes’ daughter) and Faith (Ashley Aufderheide). Set in 1970s Boston, the film is based on Forbes’ childhood, though more specifically, it’s a love letter to her father.

We meet him wearing only red briefs, banging on the windows of his family’s locked car, Maggie and the kids cowering inside with their packed suitcases. After his mental breakdown and a short, institutionalized recovery, Cam is met with the biggest challenge of his life: to better support the family, Maggie goes off to school to get her MBA, leaving him to take care of the girls by himself in their tiny bohemian apartment, his mental faculties still out of whack. She promises to visit on the weekends, but that may not be enough to keep the house in order.

If the premise sounds dreary, don’t be dissuaded; Polar Bear is an almost aggressively upbeat film in which entertainment and fun is of high priority. Ruffalo’s casting is the cornerstone of the whole production. Everything revolves around him: he sets the tone and leads the scenes, and is very much the heart of the film. Very few actors could make manic depression look cute, but if you’ve ever seen Ruffalo and those soulful eyes on-screen before,  you know the challenge is well within his acting capabilities. Cam says some nasty things to his wife and kids, things that would rupture even the strongest family bonds (he occasionally abandons the girls and even flips them off from time to time).

But despite this, he never becomes someone we don’t want to be around. He’s full of love and vim and has a voracious need to make people happy. His off-key sense of humor has trickled down to his girls, resulting in funny, disarming exchanges that come from left field. Cam’s almost always off the rails, but there’s a beauty to his rawness. Sometimes he says things most parents wish they could say but wouldn’t ever dare to. His brutal honesty is admirable, if a wholly unconventional for a parent of two.

The movie, like Cam, is bursting with life. There’s a fluidity to the storytelling that feels refreshing in a sea of family dramedies that too often feel emotionally stiff and segmented. Those movies play out like this: Funny scene. Serious scene. Funny Scene. Serious scene. One minute you’re laughing, the next you’re nodding your head with a stern expression, arms folded. In Polar Bear, the laughs bleed into the dramatic scenes, and most moments of happiness have a tinge of melancholy or sadness lurking in the subtext.

What Forbes does that’s so great is sensitize us to the unconventional inner-workings of the family until their ostensibly wacko ways of doing things feel normal and even sweet (Me and You and Everyone We Know comes to mind). When Cam gets upset with the girls, he throws things and storms off, screaming things like, “I can’t take this anymore!” He’s yelling at his girls, which is scary, but the fact that he doesn’t condescend to them and trusts them enough to share his feelings openly swells the heart. Cam’s room is packed with gizmos and appliances in different stages of repair, and we often see him tinkering with something, whether it be a bicycle gear or a sewing machine or old Polaroids. Maggie tells him she could never sleep in a room so messy with doodads and tchotchkes, but after a while his clutter only makes him more endearing, both to Maggie and to us.

If there’s a downside to Forbes’ upbeat style it’s that she doesn’t give us enough moments of respite. The film flies by, which may count as a good thing to most, though I found the lack of down time to be slightly problematic. Forbes doesn’t allow us to be sad for long before she rushes on to the next dose of positivity and comic hysteria. Like I said, I love the movie’s fluidity, but a bit more narrative asymmetry might have given the story a more interesting shape.

The child actors are exactly where they need to be, conveying intelligence and wit without coming off as too precocious. Not only did Forbes have her daughter helping out with the film, but her husband, Wallace Wolodarsky, produced, and several other family members played small parts in making the film a reality. Infinitely Polar Bear is truly a family affair, like a movie version of a mom and pop shop with Forbes’ father’s name written in big letters on the sign above the entrance. One can only imagine he’d be ecstatic to know that his daughter has turned their family story into a film that will touch so many others.

Good-natured geeks get pulled into the quicksand of LA gang culture in Rick Famuyiwa‘s Sundance hit, Dope. It’s an unpredictable coming-of-age comedy that earns every laugh with its smart writing and well-crafted jokes that never feel cheap. Unlike other films addressing similar social and racial issues, Famuyiwa’s film isn’t a hero’s tale or some urban fantasy about rising above prejudice. It’s not a story about being a good person; it’s about being a survivor.

The underdog at the center of the story is Malcolm, played by a flat-top-rocking Shameik Moore. Malcolm’s a bright high school senior living in the Inglewood neighborhood called “The Bottoms” with his mom, a bus driver (his father left a long time ago, his only meaningful remnant a gifted VHS copy of Superfly). He’s a self-professed geek, spending most of his days obsessing over ’90s hip-hop culture (hence the flat-top), manga, porn and playing in a punk band with his two best friends. Kiersey Clemons plays Diggy, an outgoing, out-of-the-closet scrapper who’s always got Malcolm’s back. The third member of the hip-hop bohemian tribe is a scrawny fellow they call Jib, played by Tony Revolori (he was Zero in The Grand Budapest Hotel).

It’s explained early on (via slightly awkward Forest Whitaker narration) that The Bottoms is a pretty unfriendly place for them. Fights and shootings happen all the time, so getting bullied at school by Bloods (an everyday occurrence for Malcolm) is considered a relatively trivial complication compared to the gruesome stuff that happens on the block. Malcolm tries to avoid trouble as best he can, especially since he’s got Harvard in his crosshairs as his first-choice school. Nowhere in his application letter does he mention his under-privileged upbringing; instead, he analyzes Ice Cube’s Good Day as a way to stand out from the crowd of Harvard hopefuls. Upon reading the letter, Malcolm’s professor, who’s facilitating the application process, is frustrated that Malcolm—a straight-A student with a sterling record—thinks he can get into Harvard without using his hard-knocks upbringing to garner sympathy. “Who do you think you are?”

Later in the film, Malcolm’s in a dingy warehouse back office making a deal with a snarling thug involving inordinate amounts of molly (ecstasy), a thumb drive, and wads of dirty cash. The gangster tells Malcolm exactly who he is: “A man who don’t give a fuck.” How did Malcolm, a model teenager with a clean conscience, fall into such shady business, business that could derail his future?

It all starts with Dom (A$AP Rocky), a charismatic dealer who runs his block with a clenched fist. He takes Malcolm under his wing, using the nervous teen as a messenger pigeon to ask a pretty, smart girl up the block (Zoë Kravitz, channeling Nia Long in Friday) to come to his birthday party at the club. She agrees, but only if Malcolm goes, too. Malcolm develops a quick crush, of course, so he shows up to the party, Diggy and Jib in tow. In the chaos of a drug deal gone-wrong and a subsequent police raid, Malcolm winds up with a gun and tens of thousands of dollars worth of drugs in his backpack.

Thus begins Malcolm’s descent into a world of narcotic traffickers, racketeers and killers, with the geeky trio scrambling to figure out how to get rid of the drugs while trying to stay alive. The series of unlucky events cascade like falling dominos, and though things get dicey, the humor is always there, sustaining the film’s vigor.

Malcolm’s is a veritable whiz when it comes to academics, but when it comes to his new drug-slinging street life, he’s completely out of his depth. Whether he’s being seduced by a sultry drug empire princess, talking on the phone with a growly debt collector, or shivering as he points a gun for the first time, he’s always got a stupefied, almost cross-eyed look on his face. Moore’s great in the role because he’s effortlessly sympathetic; you can’t help but like him (the awesome Fresh Prince, De La Soul-inspired throwback attire doesn’t hurt, either). The rest of the cast is mostly very good, though Roger Guenveur Smith stinks up the joint as a borderline-comatose drug lord. Clemons and Revolori play solid confidants, but at the end of the day, Moore runs away with the movie.

Famuyiwa and DP Rachel Morrison’s visuals are vibrant and crisp, utilizing split-screen and unexpected freeze-frames and interludes to electric effect. The film’s always on the move, just like its protagonists. A late, unforgettable sequence in which Malcolm addresses the camera directly is a breathless show-stealer, a chilling monologue that’s easily be one of the best movie moments of the year. As far as soundtracks go, it’s Dope‘s track-list is going to be tough to beat. Narratively weaved-in classics from Nas (“The World Is Yours”), Public Enemy (“Rebel Without a Pause”) and A Tribe Called Quest (“Scenario”) are invaluable in defining the film’s style and vibe.

Like Dear White People, Dope is a movie about identity and perception. Malcolm’s struggle to reconcile his Harvard aspirations with his current, Walter White-ish situation is the movie’s drive, and the final resolution is a piercing observation on being someone of color, someone who society expects less from than the white mighty majority. The movie doesn’t get weighed down by the serious business, though: it’s a terrific hangout flick in the vein of Cooley High and Friday. Dope‘s dopeness is off the charts.

In a 2011 CBC Radio interview, Beach Boys frontman Brian Wilson was asked why the sun was such a central theme in his famous pocket symphonies. His answer: “Because it’s California sunshine, you know?” (He then proceeded to sing an impromptu, acapella version of “Do It Again.”) It was a delightfully straightforward, almost childlike answer given by a man who wrote heavenly songs to bat away the demons that terrorized and ravaged him in his waking life.

Love & Mercy, an unconventional biopic based on Wilson, isn’t so much about sunshine as it is about his demons. The focus is the anguish and isolation that plagued him from his early days as a musical prodigy and deep into his adult years, when drugs and anxiety nearly reduced his mind to mush. It may be the best musician portrait of the millennium so far, for its artistic ambition, supreme sound design and chilling performances.

It’s a hard enough thing telling someone’s life story in two measly hours, but when your subject is Wilson, a man whose life is so legendary it could easily fill a 1,000-page book, the Wikipedia biopic approach simply won’t cut it. Bad biopics try to shove a life story into a bottle; good ones take on a life of their own. Director Bill Pohlad and screenwriter Oren Moverman get it: instead of going with the “rock ‘n’ roll rise ‘n’ fall” approach, they use two critical, defining slices of Wilson’s life to render a beautifully complex, abstract interpretation of the man who gifted us “Good Vibrations” and “California Girls.” Despite covering only two portions of Wilson’s life, Pohlad and Moverman’s film feels rounded, complete, and faithful to its subject’s soul and spirit.

The narrative is stereophonic, in a way. It tells two stories, phasing them into a larger arc with clever scene arrangement and seamless editing that echoes the fluidity of Boyhood‘s invisible time jumps. Paul Dano plays a young Brian in the ’60s, whose artistic awakening has coincided with the emergence of a debilitating anxiety disorder; John Cusack plays him in the ’80s, a chemically imbalanced mess who’s unsure of every word that escapes his lips.

’80s Brian is a man on a leash, held captive by Dr. Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti), a shady therapist who’s taken charge of Brian’s life and, conveniently, his funds. (Landy’s moved into Brian’s Malibu mansion, moving Brian to a smaller house up the coast.) Brian meets his savior and future wife in Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks), a savvy car saleswoman who he asks on a date while sitting in a car she’s in the process of selling him. Melinda and Brian’s romance and camaraderie and her efforts to liberate him from the imperious Dr. Landy drive their half of the film.

The earlier time frame covers the Beach Boys in their prime, topping the charts and competing for pop culture dominance with The Beatles. An early scene has the camera slowly circling Dano’s Brian, sitting at a piano and playing a kernel of a song that, as the movie progresses, turns into “God Only Knows,” which would become widely regarded as one of the best songs ever written. His gift comes with a curse: severe panic attacks begin to wreak havoc on his psyche, torturing him as he creates Pet Sounds, an album that would become his preeminent masterpiece.

Wilson led a turbulent life from the start, going from being the son of an emotionally and physically abusive father and straight into the arms of Dr. Landy. He didn’t live life on his terms, instead resigning himself to the role of peon for most of his adult life. The only time he had absolute control was in the studio, where he was notoriously meticulous about the execution of his musical arrangements. Pohlad recreates the famous Pet Sounds sessions in brilliant detail, in the same studio where Wilson and The Wrecking Crew laid down the classic record. Dano gets Wilson’s obsessive perfectionism down, well, perfectly, vocalizing to the musicians exactly how he wants each note played. He yells to the cello player from the booth: “Taka-ta-taka-ta-taka-ta-taka!”

Love & Mercy glides forward gracefully, flitting from side to side between the two time periods like a well handled hockey puck. Its shape doesn’t resemble any biopic I’ve ever seen, and that’s its strongest quality. It jumps forwards and backwards in time, but the story’s movement feels lateral, not linear. The way Pohlad accomplishes this is by letting the two stories breathe and develop on their own terms and on their own time, apart from each other. They’re weaved together with sharp filmmaking technique, but beyond that they’re completely discrete.

The most glaring proof of this is the fact that Dano and Cusack look nothing alike. Their interpretations of Wilson are unique, and there doesn’t seem to be any sense of continuity between their performances. This is a good thing. If they’d used makeup to make them look more alike, it would have soured the pot from the get-go.

Looper comes to mind: What sold Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a younger Bruce Willis wasn’t the creepy-looking makeup; it was his performance. It was the twitches, the way he spoke, the way he walked, the way he held his hands, the way he raised his eyebrow. Cusack looks nothing like Dano or Wilson, but when he’s in motion—dangling his arms at his sides, whispering like a child with a secret—he sounds and moves and feels just like Wilson. He had a steeper hill to climb than Dano (who’s a dead-ringer for a young Wilson in every way), but he makes it to the other side without the aid of prosthetics or CG tomfoolery. Impressive.

This is the most subtle, measured performance of Dano’s career. He’s always been a standout, but always seems to be aggressively trying to steal scenes in an almost competitive, selfish manner that occasionally undermines his on-screen partners (he does this in Looper to Gordon-Levitt, actually). The fact that he’s playing such an iconic man (who happens to still be alive) in this movie seems to have calmed him down a bit and allowed him to explore nuance in a way he never has before. As a bonus, he plays the piano and sings himself, an extra detail musicians will no doubt appreciate. (Nothing’s worse than the disconnect of hearing a lovely piano tune as an actor flails his fingers across the keys like a faulty marionette.

(Cue “Heroes and Villains.”) Banks and Giamatti’s contributions to the film shouldn’t be understated. They’re both phenomenal, and in fact share a handful of scenes together, one of which may be the film’s best. In the throes of a nasty legal battle (Landy was Wilson’s legal guardian for a time), Dr. Landy pays Melinda a visit at the car dealership, pounding on her locked office door like a threatened gorilla, screaming obscene threats. Eventually, Melinda swings the door open. The look on Banks’ face as she stares down Giamatti is more badass than anything you’ll see in any action blockbuster this summer. She’s killer.

Wilson devotees will likely be moved to tears by Love & Mercy (“God Only Knows” is waterworks material for me no matter the context), thought the experience of the uninitiated will be no less special. This man is a certified American icon, and for his legacy to be preserved in a way that comes ever so close to matching his artistry is a wonderful thing. The film’s only major obstacle is Cusack’s resemblance issue. If you can’t get past it, you may find yourself repeatedly thrown out of the movie every time he saunters into frame. If you can get past it (it took me a while, but I did), you’ll have a film experience to treasure for years to come.

It’s common, even in the early days of summer, to fall victim to what I like to call “big boom fatigue.” After watching face-melting fireworks displays like Avengers: Age of Ultron, Furious 7 and Mad Max: Fury Road, you’re liable to feel a little exhausted from all the excitement. Sometimes you need a little respite from all the CGI carnage and falling debris, a mild-mannered, quiet movie to act as a sort of counter-balance to all the big-budget noise. For this, you’d be hard-pressed to do better than I’ll See You In My Dreams, a moving, silky-smooth character portrait about an older woman’s private lament of a world passing her by and the beauty of life in twilight. It’s your one-way ticket to summertime serenity.

The film’s keystone is Blythe Danner, whose soft, sophisticated performance will occupy your thoughts for a good long while. She plays Carol, a long-widowed, peacefully retired woman who spends her days drifting around her comfy house and lazing about with Hazel, her ailing dog. When she’s forced to put her canine companion down, her lazing turns lonesome (this happens very early in the movie, but by this point Danner’s already won us over, a testament to her talent). The grief over Hazel’s passing strikes Carol like blunt force trauma, scrambling whatever semblance of stability she had.

Thankfully, Carol’s got human friends, too; three of them, in fact (they’re played by June Squibb, Rhea Perlman and Mary Kay Place). It’s straight-up Golden Girls status, and it’s awesome. The girlfriends all live in the same retirement community and get together regularly to play bridge and clink glasses of chardonnay. The three supporting characters are just defined enough to build a fun group dynamic, and the actors are courteous to Danner, being mindful about letting their leader lead.

In a funny scene later in the movie, the girls get high on medicinal weed and trek to the grocery store to quell the subsequent case of munchies that grips them. They’re a wild bunch: they get stopped by a police officer a third their age for pushing home a shopping cart full of snacks on the side of the road. They laugh in his face, because they’re badasses. (Yeah…it was the weed at work, too. But still: GRANNIES RULE!)

After some playful coaxing, the girls convince Carol to revisit her romantic pursuits after a years-long dry spell. She’s persuaded to try speed dating, which doesn’t exactly pan out the way she’d have liked. One particularly horny gentlemen (oaf) comes on to her by proudly proclaiming he “doesn’t mind” if she has herpes. Charming! In any case, Carol finds more desirable opportunities for romance out in the real world, away from the procession of gray-haired creepers.

She’s courted by a leather-skinned widower named Bill (Sam Elliott, whose immaculately groomed, snowy broom-stache is all kinds of epic), a heavy-steppin’ cowboy type whose gravelly voice and bracingly direct advances make Carol quiver like an autumn leaf. He’s all but got her heart in his hands, but there’s another guy. A pool guy, to be exact. Lloyd (Martin Starr), a new, younger male presence in Carol’s life, strikes up an unusual relationship with her. One night they go out for some drinks and karaoke, and Carol tears down the house with a ravishing rendition of “Cry Me a River”. The look plastered on Lloyd’s face as she sings is unmistakably one of desire. There’s some kind of spark between them, but writer-director Brett Haley and co-writer Marc Basch don’t ever bring these blurred lines into focus. It’s a smart choice that gives the movie some depth and color. A little goes a long way.

Speaking of Mr. Haley, he’s in his twenties and wrote a movie about an elderly woman’s acquiescence with mortality. Kudos, kudos, kudos (I’m nearly 30 and can’t figure out women my age). He shows good taste, opting for sly, sardonic humor over broad-comedy pandering. The movie never begs you to laugh, or cry, or do anything. It moves us at its own pace, and though some moments feel like cold spots (some of the “Neo-Golden Girls” banter feels protracted and dips into cliché), the story on the whole is gloriously unhurried.

Utmost respect goes to Danner, whose gift is invaluable. She’s got the gentlest touch. Instead of having a rough-and-tumble grappling match with death himself, she leans in and puts her head on his chest. They engage in a sort of slow dance, swaying tearfully to a dirge from the great beyond. Then, she sticks her tongue out as if to say, “Why so serious?” What a treasure. Respect to Haley as well, who with I’ll See You In My Dreams has declared himself a young filmmaker whose vision is anything but ordinary.

Immediately after watching John Maclean’s feature film debut, Slow West, I had a nagging feeling that his film style reminded me of another director. I couldn’t nail down his exact style, which is bright but gruesome, gritty but aesthetically pleasing, serious but absolutely hilarious. It didn’t hit me until after some serious thought who the best director to compare him to is. I hesitate to say it, given the high profile comparison, but Maclean has an approach that feels very similar to Wes Anderson. They both take characters that could be easy to simply laugh at, but whose heartfelt conviction is too winning to deny. They both pay close attention to the details of art direction. Heck, there is even a random moment of French-speaking, poetic love-pondering among strangers—very Anderson-esque. Both Anderson and Maclean have a level of self-awareness that adds an intriguing edge and humor. In the case of Slow West, this self-awareness lifts the film up beyond what, on the surface, could have been a run of the mill western with off-beat characters. Instead, what Maclean presents is a campfire tale just bizarre enough to believe and beautiful enough to entrance.

Young, Scottish, and totally out of his element, Jay Cavendish (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is making his way across turn of the century wild Colorado, heading west in pursuit of his love, Rose Ross (Caren Pistorius). A wonder that he’s survived as long as he has, Jay happens upon Silas Selleck (Michael Fassbender) as Silas holds up a Native-killing ex-soldier in the woods. Silas convinces Jay he’ll never make it to his true love alone and offers to take him for a fee. Jay, shaken by this recent encounter, sees his logic and agrees. They take off together, Jay trying to get to know his new trail partner, Silas making it clear he’s a loner.

Their first stop, at a tiny supply depot, turns unexpectedly violent when a poor immigrant family attempts to hold the general store up to steal money. Things escalate, in this brilliantly directed scene, to a bloody end. But this is life in the Wild West, death is all too common. Jay leaves the situation shaken, but stronger. Silas’s obvious lack of conscience, however, troubles Jay. Jay attempts to go out on his own, running into a kindly German writing a book on the diminishing Native American culture and population. “Theft,” he claims. Jay’s faith in the goodness of people seems momentarily renewed. Until he wakes up alone on the ground, all of his things stolen. Not the only example of humorous irony in Slow West. It’s used in abundance throughout, always with a subtle cleverness that makes for unexpected laughs at unassuming moments.

Unbeknownst to Jay, Rose and her father John (Game of Thrones’ Rory McCann aka The Hound) have a price on their heads, and Silas is actually a bounty hunter. Jay is leading Silas right to her. He isn’t the only outlaw interested in the high reward, however. As the paths of these lawless men cross, more about Silas’s past comes out, and his evolving personal integrity. To Silas, Jay’s undying love, (though it may be misplaced), and virtue are signs of the possibility of decent humanity in the West.

As the various bounty hunters descend upon Rose and her father—one a priestly-looking silent type with a sniper-looking rifle, the other Silas’s old mentor, the fur-coated Payne (Ben Mendelsohn)—it becomes an all out shoot out between the competing parties, as Jay rushes to defend his love.

The film is maybe less fairy tale and more cautionary tale, but the storytelling presented in the film is excellent. Not to mention peppered with Tarantino-quality fighting and deaths. But where Tarantino makes us laugh as reaction to his choreographed gore, Maclean’s humor is a bit higher brow. And the entire thing is infused with an honest and hefty measure of heart. It’s a difficult balance of emotions, and masterfully executed.

Fassbender, while never disappointing when presenting as cold and curt, turns out to have some decent comedic timing. Smit-McPhee takes the cake. His baby-face certainly makes his naive boy-in-love believable, but he adds a wise-beyond-his-years soulfulness that takes Jay beyond pathetic and upward to sweet and charming. The one most likely to be buzzed about after the film releases is newcomer Caren Pistorius as Rose, who holds very little screen-time but owns it when she has it.

Everyone’s on their A-game, including Jed Kurzel and his score (whose abilities to enhance ho-hum genre music we’ve most recently enjoyed in The Babadook). Slow West is the perfect example of a first time filmmaker who knows what he wants and how to invoke talent, making for a visionary and excellently finessed film. With a literal body count at the end, Maclean ties all his loose ends in the satisfying way of most parables. But, like he does throughout his film, what makes it ultimately so entertaining is how much the film goes against expectations, and for a Western—a genre filled with expectation—that’s no small feat.

A version of this review first appeared as part of our Tribeca 2015 coverage. 

Albert Maysles is one of the most iconic documentary filmmakers of all time. Having directed legendary documentaries like Grey Gardens (and its 2006 sequel The Beales of Grey Gardens), Gimme Shelter, and Salesman, Maysles worked as a directing team with his brother, David, until David’s death in 1987. Albert carried on the legacy, and has been actively making documentary films since. Sadly, Albert passed away just a few months ago, but with Iris, Maysles’ last major film, the legendary filmmaker truly goes out on top.

Similar to Grey Gardens, Iris is a character study on an eccentric woman who has refused to let age slow her down. The title subject, Iris Apfel, has become a bit of a style icon; she’s known for her carefree attitude and flamboyant attire. Maysles’ approach is relatively low-key; there isn’t any particular all-encompassing story to the film. It’s just a few days in the life of a real character. Still, the film is entertaining, upbeat and enjoyable; like spending a day with your lovably crazy grandmother. Over the course of the film’s eighty-minute running time, Iris has run-ins with apparent heavy-hitters in the fashion world, as well as none other than hip-hop icon Kanye West, who miraculously expresses genuine interest and gratitude towards the elderly woman. Mostly, though, Maysles just follows Iris through various clothing and fabric stores and documents her interactions with store owners and designers. On paper, it sounds quite dull, but the execution is surprisingly engaging.

Iris’ husband, Carl, is equally as entertaining as his wife. The couple lives in a lavish home filled with toys, trinkets, and various obscurities. Their relationship is adorable and charming, and Maysles captures everything from their love for one another to their typical couple tiffs—the most amusing of which is an argument over whether or not they have run out of yogurt. By the end of the film, plenty of viewers will undoubtedly want the wacky couple—who have no children—to adopt them as their own.

There’s something to be said about capturing someone’s true nature on camera. With documentaries, especially, it seems to be a daunting task to get the absolute truth out of a person, as it is human nature to play up to the camera. And while Iris and Carl certainly seem like a vivacious and animated couple, their personalities never feel disingenuous or phony. They truly are a wild, lively, and undeniably lovable duo, and Maysles’ ability to capture them in sincere fashion is nothing short of brilliant. Right up until his death, even in his late eighties, Maysles was still an unbelievable documentarian.

Iris’ occasionally self-deprecating attitude and apparent disdain for traditional views of beauty and self-importance provide plenty of humorous anecdotes and, as a result, make the film immensely quotable. It is absolutely fascinating listening to Iris discuss how “pretty” is overrated, and her lack of traditional attractiveness is what caused her to develop such a strong personality, which in turn has made her an immaculate success. At its core, that’s really what Iris is all about. It’s about being happy with being who you are, and never apologizing to those who can’t appreciate your true character.

Iris is a well-made, engaging, and lighthearted tale that lacks any sort of cynicism. The consistently upbeat and hopeful tone of the film is sure to have audiences leaving the theater will smiles on their faces. It’s always nice to see legendary directors go out with a bang instead of a fizzle, and Albert Maysles certainly does just that with Iris. Make sure you see this movie. Even if you couldn’t possibly care less about fashion, socialites, or style, make sure you see this movie.

Ex Machina is as much a nerd’s cautionary tale as it is a nerd’s wet dream. It’s about two tech experts (nerds) who conduct an experiment on the world’s first true sentient AI, a mesmerizing, beautiful thing made up of plastic and metal and sinewy wires in the shape of an attractive young woman. Her name is Ava. She walks and talks and flirts and makes small talk just like us, only her skin is synthetic and we can see her insides. (See? Nerd’s wet dream. I kid. Sorta.) But how smart is she? Her human captors try to test her limits as a sentient being, but what they discover is something not even men as ingenious as them could have prepared for.

Sounds pretty intense, right? Well, it is, but that’s not to say novelist-turned screenwriter Alex Garland‘s directorial debut is a piece of tech-panic horror. Rather, it’s a crafty piece of thinking-man’s sci-fi, a ponderous, level-headed exploration of the implications we’d face as a species should we birth true AI. There are more than a few fascinating ideas and themes floating around in the film, enough to make it one of the most thoughtful and idiosyncratic films about robots, well, ever. Still, the movie’s first priority is entertainment, and on that front it doesn’t disappoint.

The story’s mastermind is Nathan (Oscar Isaac), the muscly, intellectually imposing CEO of a Google-like search engine tech company. He’s Ava’s creator, and he’s found her a playmate in Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), a lanky, timid programmer who’s won a company-wide lottery that’s gifted him the extraordinary opportunity to spend a week at Nathan’s secluded, ridiculously expensive home, nestled into a mountainside at some undisclosed location not meant for common folk. Upon arrival, Nathan springs the surprise of a lifetime on Caleb, informing him that what he’s really there to do is interact with Ava, performing a kind of post-Turing Test in which he’s to determine whether she can pass as authentically sentient, despite Caleb knowing with complete certainty she’s man-made. If the Turing’s imitation game is blind, Nathan’s removed Caleb’s blindfold.

There’s another, reverse Turing Test of sorts going on as well, outside the confines of what we see on-screen. Ava’s played by a person, Swedish-born ballerina Alicia Vikander, but she, with the help of Garland and his visual effects team, must convince us, the audience, through various forms of movie magic, that what we’re seeing on-screen is not flesh and bone, but a humanoid mass of electronics. The illusion is key, as it’s the foundation the rest of the movie builds upon. Thankfully, it’s as impenetrable a visual trick as I’ve seen in years; I was in a constant state of amazement at how believable Vikander looks as a robot with a see-through midriff and limbs. I was stumped, and it was awesome.

While Ava is partly a grand feat in digital effects and conceptualization, what truly makes her convincing is Vikander, whose body vocabulary represents a sterilization and streamlining of the human body in motion, the aches and pains, tics and stutters sanded away. It’s a bizarre thing to watch Vikander glide around the room, her mechanical joints purring softly, as you find yourself forgetting she’s, in reality, draped in digital confections. For her controlled, inspired performance, Vikander deserves all the praise we can muster.

Let’s not forget the boys, though; they get work done, too. A large chunk of the film is driven by the layered, between-the-lines game of wits and intimidation played by Nathan and Caleb. Ostensibly, Nathan seems to just want to be Caleb’s “bro dude man” rather than his boss’ boss’ boss. But there’s a bit of predatory menace lurking underneath Nathan’s “tech-bro” image that’s represented in his burly physique and un-blinking glare. (When Caleb first meets him, he’s walloping the shit out of a punching bag. Coincidence? I think not.) As Caleb clocks in more and more sessions with Ava (who’s kept behind a wall of thick glass, but is irresistibly charming nonetheless), he begins to see Nathan and Ava not as an inventor and his invention, but as a monster and his imprisoned damsel. The point is, Caleb begins to feel for this machine, to the point where he wouldn’t be above doing her some favors. Is he a pawn in Ava’s scheme…or Nathan’s?

Nathan is the best cinematic intellectual oppressor since Christoph Waltz’s Hans Landa. Isaac is as good as he’s been in anything, and his physical transformation is arguably on-par with Vikander’s. Gleeson’s great too as the shy, slouched Caleb; while Isaac and Vikander’s characters are fully-formed and stay on a steady path throughout the story, Gleeson’s given what’s easily the film’s most dramatic character arc. He’s the audience’s proxy, primarily, but he lends a complexity and pathos to Caleb that pays off in spades by film’s end. Though Ex Machina is a cerebral movie for sure, Vikander, Isaac, and Gleeson’s performances anchor the film and make it feel wonderfully chaotic and raw as opposed to clinical and sober.

Garland’s got balls to tackle so many controversial topics at once, and that he pulls it off so smoothly proves he’s got skill on top of his nerve. There are tons of ideas swimming around in the film, some of which could fuel a movie on their own. Ava, for example, isn’t only the embodiment of AI and its ramifications regarding humanity, but a walking question of gender identity (she’s made of synthetic parts; and yet, she’s a she). Nathan and Caleb’s intellectual sparring matches are an examination of male ego, there’s more than a whiff of Blue Beard and Pygmalion in the narrative, and on top of that Garland brings up the freaky reality that our search engines know more about us than our loved ones do. Needless to say, I’m still chewing on this stuff weeks later.

What’s really cool about Ex Machina is that, despite its high-brow inner-workings, it’s still an easily accessible, small-scale thriller that offers as many genre pleasures as it does philosophical head-scratchers. It’s stylish, sleek and intellectually stimulating, but most importantly, it’s a lot of goddamn fun.

Anyone who is a fan of Oscar winning A Separation, and the work of Iranian director Asghar Farhadi will want to see About Elly. It is a masterclass in both storytelling and film making. Farhadi is a multi-award winning director and not without reason; one of those reasons is his brilliance in the art of deception and illusion. He has the gift of deceiving us into believing we are watching a simple slice of Iranian life but all the while he is planting seeds that will grow and eventually come to maturity and fruition in the most unexpected and enlightened of ways.

About Elly, superficially at least, is a story about a group of 30 something middle class Iranians, who together with their children take a 3 day break from life in Tehran to travel north up to the Caspian Sea for some sun, fun and relaxation. Unbeknown to the main group trip organizer, Sepideh (Golshifteh Farahani) has been playing matchmaker. She plans on introducing her daughters apparently singleton teacher Elly (Taraneh Alidoosti) a stranger to the main group, to the recently divorced Ahmad (Shahab Hosseini).

What is striking from the opening scenes is the tremendous unity and strength within the group which cannot be shaken even when they are informed the accommodation is double booked. Trip organizer Sepideh resolves the issue by gaining the sympathy of to the site owners with a little white lie, explaining that Elly and Ahmad are newlyweds and the group are then offered alternative arrangements.

Spirits are high and the friends democratically vote to accept the offer of the apartment and then decide amongst themselves who will be responsible for cleaning as the new apartment is unkempt and in desperate need of a clean. This setback is only a minor inconvenience and serves to increase the togetherness and harmony of the group. The togetherness of the group is further strengthened with the sharing of the main meal and participation of all in an after dinner game of Charades.

The apparent harmony is short lived when the very next morning an unforeseen incident sets about a dynamic that will tear the tranquility and cohesion of the group apart. What has on the surface appeared to be a straightforward even simple tale of a group of friends on a short holiday quickly evolves into a tale of mystery, tragedy, conspiracy, hope and despair now set against a backdrop of the higher and more culturally important issues of morality and honor.

For anyone not too familiar with Iran and its culture, outside of TV newsreels, like myself, About Elly will challenge any assumptions you may have about life in a modern theocratic Iran. Yes, there is a deep regard for spiritual life and the clear divide between men and women remains. There are a couple of powerful examples within the film which highlight this same point. The first is when Sepideh risks her own life by diving into the sea in full dress including hijab. It is noticeable the young boy removes his tee shirt to go bared top without a second glance. The second is when the group are debating and judging the good name of Elly within the context of morality and honor. There clearly is more than a hint of a suggestion that it is perhaps better for a woman to be dead than suffer dishonor.

At the same time, Farhadi gives us more than enough glimpses that the times are a changing for at least some middle class women. The very democratic nature of the group. Women challenging their husband’s decisions, making decisions not solely on the basis of child rearing and domesticity. Within this liberal group there is no call to prayer 5 times daily making religion less suffocating and embracing.

With numerous awards and nominations behind it, About Elly deserves to be given consideration and attention by all serious fans of World Cinema. For nearly 2 hours Farhadi has us mesmerized, captivated, our eyes glued to the screen while he works his unmistakable brand of magic. About Elly is truly a cinematic experience to savior.

This review was originally published on 9/18/12. Cinema Guild released About Elly to US audiences on April 8th.

Dog lovers, get ready. Prepare to replace Old Yeller, Cujo, White Dog or whichever other preferred dog film you have on the top of your list, because a new canine feature is coming to a theatre near you, and it’s fantastic. Kornél Mundruczó’s White God is a mixed breed of genres, much like the heroic pooch at the centre of its story, combining the exhilaration one gets from adventure, melodrama, horror, and revenge exploitation into two hours of hair-raising entertainment. And if that wasn’t enough, the film manages to be a morality tale on the current state of sociopolitical affairs in Hungary, and a coming-of-age story about one girl’s concept of love. It packs a gamut of ideas and concepts, some of which are stronger than others, and triumphantly succeeds in being a ultra-gratifying cinematic experience.

The opening shots kick things off with a bang. Thirteen year old Lily (Zsófia Psotta) is riding her bike around a contemporary Budapest in the middle of an afternoon, the deserted environment sending off major post-apocalyptic vibes; abandoned cars in the middle of the streets, and not a soul in sight. And then: the dogs. Introduced by sonorous trumpets on the score, a pack of two hundred or so dogs stampede towards Lily: relentless, unstoppable, unleashed. Taking no notice of the girl, they knock her down and continue their pursuit. Cut to titles. Now, that’s what I call an opening. After the titles, we jump back to the beginning: Lily will have to stay with her father (Hungarian thesp Sándor Zsótér) while her mother is away for three months. The trouble is, she refuses to be separated from Hagen, a very affectionate and lovable dog she found on the street. When the dad’s nosy neighbour reports Hagen, falsely claiming that he bit her, the dog-catchers come a-knocking, insisting that a fine be paid. Apparently, a Hungarian law requires owners of mixed-breed dogs to pay an extra fine due to the animals’ unpredictable and threatening nature, especially those from the street. When the father refuses to pay the fine, he forcibly separates Lily from Hagen, and abandons the pooch on the street. Thus, White God begins.

The narrative becomes a forked path: we follow Hagen as he fends for himself, running away from the persistent dog-catchers, and into the mischievous hands of a dogfight trainer who programs the pup into a menacing fighting beast. The second path follows Lily, as she desperately searches for Hagen and starts to cope with the idea that she might never see him again. That’s as far as I’ll go with the plot. Suffice it to say that the twists and turns to follow keep the heart racing in overdrive, and one critical juncture redefines the entire film to such a high degree, it practically begs the audience to rawr in approval, punch the air, and celebrate the major turn of events.

In the recent interview I had with Mr. Mundruczo (read it here), he was very candid about the fact that White God presents a new kind of cinematic language for him. While this may not be felt by audiences unfamiliar with his earlier work White God is undoubtedly his most internationally acclaimed film to date), there is an undeniable sense that the man is as well-versed in cinema as language, constructing scenes that have tremendous power. When Lily tells Hagen to stay put during her music class, for example, the camera switches to Hagen’s POV a handful of times, instilling a sense of momentum and suspense into an otherwise basic scene of a master telling her pet to behave. Then, of course, there’s the genius casting of Hagen. The stars aligned for Mundruczó and his animal trainer, Teresa Miller, because the two dogs they found to portray Hagen (Bodie and Luke) give an uncanny performance. That’s right: performance. Scenes of Hagen trying to cross the street in the middle of heavy traffic, the brutality of his training, that heart-stopping finale, among others, should sweep audiences off their feet regardless of whether they’re dog lovers or not, because the personality and emotion evoked by the dog(s) throughout the entire picture is unbelievable.

There’s that question, of course, of whether White God will only truly work for people who have a natural affinity towards dogs. It’s a valid question that only time will answer correctly, but it certainly feels wrong to classify it as “just another film about dogs.” While Lily’s narrative isn’t as compelling as Hagen’s, there is an indelible sense of the allegory Mundruczó is weaving. Marcell Rév’s cinematography meanders between light blue shades and stark darkness to effectively evoke a broken Budapest. The writing, while unvarnished in spots, succinctly squeezes out all the prejudices and malevolent characteristics from the everyday of adult human routine. How Mundruczó upends this to his advantage, turning the story into a symbolic call-to-arms, needs to be seen. White God is absolutely an insta-classic dog film, but it’s also superbly crafted genre cinema, and a canine fairytale that’s sure to sweep audiences off their feet.

The ultimate sign of a great movie, to me, is when it follows you home. Like a heated argument with a friend or a flirty chance encounter with a pretty girl, you just can’t stop thinking about it. A great movie occupies your head for days, creeping up on you when you’re doing the dishes, driving to work, or even having sex. David Robert Mitchell‘s It Follows is such a movie, and what makes it even more precious a gem is that it’s a horror movie, and a downright terrifying one at that. I can’t remember the last movie that freaked me out so thoroughly. Great movies stick to the back of your mind; It Follows breathes down the back of your neck.

What is It exactly? Well, it’s a shapeshifting monster that stalks its victims until A) it kills them or B) the hunted has sex with someone, passing the “infection” along. While on paper it seems a clear metaphor for STDs or AIDS (were it made 25 years ago), it’s actually more complex than that. If the monster manages to kill its target, it shifts its focus to the previous one. It’s invisible to everyone but its current and former prey, and the closer it gets, the more fucked up it looks (from afar it could appear to be a normal-looking granny; up close, it could be a rape victim pissing down her own leg). It doesn’t run (thank goodness—I’d have a heart attack) and it doesn’t talk. It just walks toward you perpetually, its destiny to dine on your flesh.

Maika Monroe (The Guest) plays Jay, a pretty girl from the suburbs of Detroit who, after having sex with her new boyfriend in the back of his car, becomes the paranormal stalker’s new mark. Unless she can find someone new to have sex with (it wouldn’t be hard considering she has plenty of admirers to choose from, but she’s got too much self-respect for that), she’ll have to live the rest of her days on the run. Thankfully, she’s got a tight contingent of friends to protect her and help save her from the monster: her sister, Kelly (Lili Sepe); her nerdy best friend, Yara (Olivia Luccardi); and her childhood playmate, Paul (Keir Gilchrist), a puny fellow who’s always had a crush on Jay. Joining them later in the story is Greg (Daniel Zovatto), the hunky guy from across the street. How will they get rid of the demonic lurker? Will Jay sleep with a stranger, Greg, or Paul (with his nerdy-virgin aura, you can’t help but root for him)?

One of the coolest things about the movie is how insular it is, focusing the story squarely on the young leads and their immediate surroundings, letting the rest of the world fall away into nothingness. The kids’ parents are essentially non-entities (except when the monster takes their form), giving the film a nostalgic, urban legend flavor that brought me back to when Are You Afraid of the Dark haunted my dreams on Saturday nights in the ’90s. The nostalgia factor runs even deeper than that: the film seems to exist in a time period that’s a scattered conflation of the past 60 years. The kids watch TV on an old boob tube in a wood-paneled room, and yet Yara runs around with a pink, seashell-shaped smartphone or e-reader of some sort. Mitchell doesn’t seem to want us to be concerned with the story’s time period, leaving it largely ambiguous, which at the same time affords him the liberty to pick and choose props and design aesthetics from any decade he wants, authenticity be damned. As a result the film has a look and feel you can’t really put your finger on, which is a very, very good thing.

It’s hard to pin down the mood Mitchell is able to create, but I wouldn’t say the film is necessarily enigmatic or elusive. What’s going on here is that Mitchell is aiming to evoke and trigger abstract feelings, fears and emotions rather than let plot define the experience. There are several dark themes at play (primarily the dangers of sexual awakening), but they emerge organically. It’s as if we discover them rather than have them fed to us by a heavy-handed screenwriter. The film’s generated so much talk and critical momentum because it bucks convention in so many ways. Trashy jump-scares are nonexistent because the movie doesn’t need them; it’s extremely tense and unsettling all the way through. Most teen horror movies manufacture drama via dissent within the core group, but It Follows‘ characters stay (mostly) supportive and loyal.

The most atypical element of all, though, is the film’s villain, ingenious in its simplicity. It awakens common social and sexual fears on a primal level, acting as a blank canvas for us to project our darkest fears onto. I can remember thinking when I first heard the infectious guitar riff from The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” back in 2003, “How the hell did no one write this until now?” It felt so immediately classic and iconic, and yet it was also brand new. That’s exactly how I feel about the titular “It.” Unique. Terrifying. Elemental. Innovative. It’s the best, most nightmarish horror creation in recent memory.

That’s not taking anything away from Monroe, though, who’s critically instrumental in making the monster so frightening. Some of the film’s scariest moments aren’t when we see the monster itself, but when we see Monroe seeing the monster. She knows how to tell a story with her eyes, the sure sign of a skilled actor. It’s all but undeniable at this point that she’s destined for big things. Sepe plays a great confidant and is a generous on-screen partner for Monroe, never trying to outshine her. (Unfortunately, she won’t get the credit she deserves because her role is so understated.) Gilchrist is incredibly sympathetic and surprisingly winds up becoming the heart of the film.

Like Jim Mickle did in Cold in July, Mitchell uses eerie, ’80s-style synths to emulate the classic soundscape John Carpenter perfected in Halloween. He’s a bit too aggressive with the score at times, though, sometimes bumping up the siren-like synth wails so loud it distracts from rather than supports the imagery. He more effectively ratchets up the film’s overwhelming sense of dread with his camera, occasionally using sweeping 360 degree pans as an opportunity for us to scour the environment for “It” and exacerbate our paranoia. He’s letting us scratch our itch: it makes us feel good momentarily, but he knows it’ll only make things worse in the long run. Though early in his career, Mitchell already seems to be approaching “Master of Horror” status alongside Carpenter, Tobe Hooper, and Guillermo del Toro.

Lisandro Alonso’s Jauja, world premiering in Un Certain Regarde, is from another planet. Much like Ceylan’s Winter Sleep this is what a real experience feels like in the movie theater. Unfortunately, I was unable to get too acquainted with Lisandor’s previous films before the festival began and only managed to catch his 2004 film Los Muertos, about a man released from prison and his journey back home to his daughter. It’s a captivating, at times tedious, affair. Man’s displacement in nature and within family feels like one of Alonso’s major themes. Snail-like camera movement, lengthy takes, and no musical accompaniment, his preferred tools. 10 years later, and after a couple of more films I will most definitely be seeing soon, he has a made a film that is in a different league, using everything seen in Los Muertos (right down to the subject of a father searching for his daughter) to infinitely higher degrees. It’s unbelievably not competing for the Palme D’Or and I’m not sure how that happened, but I’ve got an inkling that it will wind up as the granddaddy of the UCR; with more experience and wisdom captured in a few frames than entire films in the section.

The film opens with a caption about what ‘Jauja’ is exactly; a mythical, earthly paradise, which man has sought for centuries and never found. The time and setting of the desolation that surrounds the 4:3 frame is never revealed, though it looks to be the period of the conquistadors when European forces were conquering aboriginal peoples. Danish Captain Dinesen (Viggo Mortensen) has joined camps with a Spanish infantry and brought his daughter Inga (Ghita Norby) along. The first section of the film establishes the relationships between Dinesen, the Spanish lieutenant Pittaluga, Inga, and Inga’s Spanish soldier-lover Corto. Word has reached their camp that captain Zuluaga, renowned for his bravery and experience in the desert, has disappeared under mysterious circumstances. When Inga steals off one night with Corto, Dinesen wakes up in a panic and – not heeding the advice of the seedy Pittaluga – rides off into the desert to search for his daughter.

The film truly takes off once Mortensen’s captain begins his search. The establishing scenes contain more dialogue than the entire length of Los Muertos and while the words spoken lay the foundations of the themes (mysticism, perversion, loss of self) it is the framing and depth of field in this beginning sequence that is instantly captivating. Characters on the left side of the screen in the forefront are contrasted with an action occurring in the distant background on the right, with the vacuum in the middle providing the groundwork for the thematic use of space in the mid-section. Once Dinesen begins his search, the desert that ‘devours everything’ becomes the film’s antagonist as it eats up time itself. Detailing how it does this would classify as a spoiler, but suffice it to say that Dinesen’s search for his daughter and the desire to go back home, as he feels more and more alienated in the foreignness that surrounds him, transcends expectations and delves into a philosophical discourse devotees of existentialism will adore.

It’s quite difficult to find the right words to describe the sensations and deep impact Jauja leaves you with. Directors that immediately come to mind in terms of aesthetic and thematic influence are Andrei Tarkovsky, David Lynch, and Carlos Reygadas though my unfamiliarity with such directors as Alejandro Jodoworski and Manoel de Oliveira feels like a deficiency here. This is the kind of philosophical, deeply visual filmmaking which many will be able to appreciate, and my respect for Viggo Mortensen (who is a magnanimous minimalist here) has sky rocketed. He is the biggest star Alonso has worked with, and if nothing else, his name alone should guarantee a lot of buzz. Of course, Alonso’s mastery alone should be enough because he has created something spectacular here. As I conclude these thoughts, my mind is flipping through the poetic excursion it just had the privilege of experiencing; scenes allowed to sink in so that the vastness of the volcanic nature swallows all attention, or the peculiarity of the aspect ratio which brings to mind Cormac McCarthy’s lack of quotations; an artistic expression which empowers the themes and mysticism of the film. Rating this film feels almost ridiculous as it’s one of those picture that transcends all kind of formality. Is there an infinite out of 10? Like Winter Sleep, principle prevents me from giving it a perfect 10, and besides, more viewings feel essential to get a full grasp. Can’t wait to go back to Jauja.

This review was originally published as part of our Cannes 2014 coverage. Jauja is out in limited theatrical release today, March 20.

Movies are a lot like cults. Think about it; strangers gather in a dark room to silently absorb a story directed, and often written as well, by one person (the leader) and told with the help of cast and crew (the cult members.) While not based on membership, the audience leaves the theater either as supporters or critics. This analogy may work better with some movies over others (the Transformers franchise is more like a corporation than a cult), but it certainly works with Riley Stearns’ fantastic indie genre gem Faults, and not just because the film’s primary subject is saving an innocent girl from an enigmatic cult. It’s an original feature debut, a compelling chamber piece boasting fantastic performances, and so soaked in charisma that it’s almost impossible not to be enchanted from hilarious start to insatiable finish.

Ansel Roth (Leland Orser) is a washed-up mind control expert who is touring with his new book, and stealing restaurant vouchers from garbage bags in the process. The book is not as successful as its predecessor, and his agent Terry cuts him off, demanding full payment for the money Ansel owes him within the week. Ansel’s seminars fail to spark enthusiasm from the half-empty conference rooms, apart from a man who blames him for his sister’s death, and an elderly couple who seek his help regarding their daughter. After refusing them at first, Ansel is compelled to help when he realizes that he has no other way to pay Terry. Claire (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) has left her home to join a cult that goes by the name of Faults and Ansel promises that he’ll do his best to “de-program” her, and bring her back home. Over the next five days, Ansel’s session with Claire results in dire psychological consequences.

Its premiere at SXSW earlier in the year started off the buzz (with our very own Dustin loving it to bits,) but Faults massively blinked on my radar when it was announced for Montreal’s genre festival Fantasia simply because I’ve become a bona fide Winstead fan, after her stunning performance in 2012’s Smashed. The streak continues here; she peels off Claire’s layers with agility and complete composure to reveal a fascinating and devilishly twisted character. But the pedestal has room for one more name: Mr. Leland Orser. As soon as you see him in the brilliant opening diner sequence, you’ll most likely go “oh yeah, that guy!” because he’s one of those actors you’re bound to have spotted somewhere. Examples include Liam Neeson’s buddy Sam from the Taken movies, the traumatized man who was forced to kill the prostitute in Seven, and countless TV appearances. Not that I’ve seen everything he’s been in, but dollars to doughnuts he’s never been as good as Ansel Roth, a role that proves how underrated and underused Orser has been all these years. It’s likely to remain one of the strongest male performances of the year.

As with any successful cult, its members are only as good as its leader (or so I’ve heard anyway), and the two leads wouldn’t have been able to pull off such startlingly good performances without Riley Stearns’ script and direction. The pitch black humor keeps the pacing of Faults at intoxicating levels; slow-burning yet never dull, with every scene crucial to the development of character, plot, and theme, more often than not all three at once. So controlled is the direction and so intelligent the screenplay, that it’s almost hard to believe this is Stearns’ first crack at features.

I’ve been joking around with the idea of cults in this review because Faults‘ shifty tone welcomes a lighter approach to the subject compared to, say, Martha Marcy May Marlene. If there’s something for critics to latch onto it could be that, but not me. Genre filmmaking is an end in itself, never pretentious, and always more about the journey than the destination. The simmering tension, controlled by Stearns at meticulous temperature levels, comes to such an entertaining climactic boil that it will have me cheering and supporting Faults, its leader and all of its members, for a long time to come. For lovers of intelligent suspense and sickly dark humor, Faults is home.

(Originally published on July 25, 2014 as part of our Fantasia festival coverage)

Bought up by Oscilloscope Laboratories days before its SXSW premiere, Buzzard received a lot of praise in Austin for which, up until today, I’ve been kicking myself for missing. Director Joel Potrykus presents a protagonist who’s hard to champion and impossible to ignore, a sullen yet boisterous con-artist with no remorse for his actions and a vague understanding of consequences. Like its lead character, Buzzard doesn’t shy away from being offensive and unapologetic, and because of it the film successfully pulls off a difficult combination of being brutally unsettling and strangely comedic.

Our title character Marty Jackitansky (Joshua Burge) isn’t the type who’s afraid to admit he’s trying to cheat the system. In an opening scene, Marty attempts to close his bank account just so he can re-open it for a free $50 sign-up bonus. During this entire five-minute scene, the camera remains fixed on the long-haired, bug-eyed anti-hero even while he waits for the banker to return with his money. Most films would have cut out the silent waiting bit, but this extra focus allows a closer study of him, a consideration of what might be going through his head. Capping off this brilliant and subtlety humorous scene, Marty reveals he actually works for the bank at another branch and is “absolutely” okay with scamming them, thoroughly confusing the banker.

The closest thing Marty has to a friend his is nerdy coworker Derek (played by the director), who channels his best impression of Kip from Napoleon Dynamite, swapping sitting in front of a computer chatting with babes all day for leveling up in video games all night. Derek not only tolerates Marty’s antics, he adds fuel to the fire by daring him to actually go through with them. Though it’s hardly a challenge since Marty is perfectly fine carrying out schemes on his own volition. His scams range from ordering extra office supplies from work then returning them in store for cash to cutting his hand at home then blaming it on the paper-cutter at work. But the ultimate score opportunity falls into his lap when his boss hands him a bunch of undelivered refund checks. Instead of finding proper mailing addresses for these checks, he forges the endorsement and cashes the checks himself.

It’s hard to tell if Marty’s scamming for financial reasons or for sheer entertainment. But trying to understand his motives is a fools errand, he simply doesn’t care about breaking the rules or taking advantage of other people. Eventually, the table turns when a convenience store clerk swindles Marty out of a few bucks, besting him at his own game. For the first time he’s completely vulnerable and for that brief moment it’s possible to feel an ounce of sorrow for him, even if he deserved it.

Part of what makes the film so wildly entertaining is there’s no telling what Marty will do next. Though, Buzzard is equally compelling on a visual level, making certain scenes impossible to forget. Like when Marty rapidly consumes an entire plate full of spaghetti and meatballs, spilling all over his clean hotel bathrobe, all while being completely satisfied by living in the moment. It’s an uncomfortable three minutes, but it’s undeniably memorable. So is the spine-tingling conclusion which cranks the surrealism volume to 11.

Suffice it to say, Buzzard isn’t for the faint of heart. Not that it’s overly violent, aside from a few scenes involving a modified Nintendo Power Glove resembling Freddy Krueger’s claws, it’s hard to stomach the way Potrykus forces a loathsome character upon us without defending or condemning him. On top of that, the film then has the nerve to ask us to sympathize with him, if only for a fleeting moment. But Potrykus’ decision not to criticize nor give justification for the repulsive Marty is a bold move that somehow works. More than just a workplace satire (Office Space seems cartoonish compared to it), Buzzard is an ugly but honest look at American capitalism which only seems fitting coming from indie cinema.

The first courtroom drama that blew me away was Otto Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder (1959). I can remember watching it on VHS, and it just grabbed me by the lapels. I’ve watched a lot of courtroom dramas since, but the list of lapel-grabbers has been short. That list has grown by one with Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem.

Ronit Elkabetz stars as Viviane Amsalem, a woman seeking a divorce from her husband, Elisha (Simon Abkarian). It sounds simple enough, but there is a huge catch: the Amsalems are Israeli. In Israel, there is no such thing as a civil marriage; all marriages are granted by Orthodox rabbis in a religious ceremony. As such, all marriages must be dissolved by Orthodox rabbis in a religious ceremony. Without the laws of man, only the laws of God – and dogma – apply. Therein lies the second catch: according to those rules, a husband must give his full consent for a marriage to be dissolved. If he doesn’t want it, she doesn’t get it. Elisha doesn’t want it.

Viviane, already trapped in an unhappy marriage, finds herself trapped again, this time in a system that stacks the deck against women and all but ignores them in the process. Still, she fights for her freedom … for five years.

Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem, co-written/co-directed by star Ronit Elkabetz and her brother, Shlomi Elkabetz, is a courtroom drama like I’ve never seen before. For starters, it isn’t a courtroom drama in the traditional sense, but rather a drama that takes place almost entirely in a courtroom, with the occasional scene occurring in an adjacent waiting room.  This gives the film contrasting feelings of intimacy and claustrophobia.

Some things about the film are familiar: judges on a bench, a stenographer, two tables, legal representation (Menashe Noy plays Viviane’s lawyer, Sasson Gabay plays Elisha’s), witnesses, and so on. But that’s where the comparisons to traditional courtroom dramas stop, and where the spellbinding story begins.

The film jettisons the usual melodramatic first act fodder. There are no flashbacks to happier days, nor moments of heartache that lead to a fateful decision. Instead, it opens with Viviane being denied her request for divorce. The story then jumps six months ahead to another attempt, only this time Elisha decides not to show. With no husband, the trial can’t proceed. Two months later, repeat. This continues for several more iterations and a variety of time spans between instances, and it’s so absurd it’s actually kind of funny–not haha-funny but unbelievable-funny. And that’s when the film has you, when it transcends courtroom drama and becomes something much more troubling. That’s when you realize the situation is so crazy, it must be grounded in truth.

That’s also the moment you realize a disturbing, higher-level pattern. With every attempt by Viviane to dissolve her marriage and get on with her life, she is thwarted by the male authority. Her passive-aggressive husband need only say, “No,” the divorce is not granted, and she is sent home to try to work things out with her husband. The rabbi judges (three in all, lead by actor Eli Gorstein) repeatedly reschedule the hearing without consideration for the toll it takes on Viviane. Elisha never faces consequences for his disregard for the hearings (what Americans would call “contempt of court”). The words of male witnesses carry more weight than the words of female witnesses. Even testimony meant to be first-hand observations of the couple’s marriage instead turn into evaluations of Viviane’s character.

In this culture, women are an afterthought.

Watching this is simultaneously maddening and irresistible. With every decision and every action (or inaction) that cuts Viviane again and again, she is resolute enough to continue, and with her strength and her lawyer’s courtroom skills, there is always a feeling that next time maybe–just maybe–Viviane will finally get her wish. Instead, in a gender-reversing twist, Viviane is the film’s Charlie Brown to the Orthodox court’s Lucy – and all the court does is keeping pulling that football away.

Ronit Elkabetz’s performance is unforgettable. As the woman who will not be denied no matter how many men get in her way, Elkabetz shows the weariness and frustration borne of years of roadblocks, with a layer beneath that the steely resolve of a woman undaunted. Almost as good is Abkarian as Elisha. Stoic to the point of looking bored, he plays perfectly the type of person who knows what he is doing is wrong, but rather than try to make something more emotional out of it or even do the right thing, he instead remains as lifeless as possible. This divorce is a grizzly bear, and Abkarian plays dead perfectly.

With terrific storytelling fundamentals, compelling emotional depth, and crackling dialogue, the Elkabetz siblings could be Israeli filmmaking’s answer to the Coen Brothers.

I mentioned earlier that there is no drama leading up to the divorce in Gett (which means divorce), and that is mostly true. What I did not know in advance of watching this film is that it is the third in a trilogy about Viviane and Elisha. The first is 2004’s To Take A Wife, which introduces the characters as their marriage is falling apart. The second is 7 Days, which looks at their separation. Gett brings the characters’ lives to resolution. The third installment is so good, I’m ready to binge-watch the trilogy (even though that means tracking down the hard-to-find middle film).

Back in the 1960’s, director Aleksei German wanted to adapt Arkady & Boris Strugatsky’s sci-fi novel Hard to Be a God into a movie. He started working on a screenplay, but the project got shelved for over 30 years. Cut to 2000, where German finally starts filming his long-gestating project. The production, an elaborate and presumably expensive one, didn’t finish until 2006. After that, German spent his time finishing the film until his death in early 2013. His wife and son continued his work, eventually finishing the film for a festival premiere later that year. Now, just over a year later, Hard to Be a God finally makes its way to the US, getting a limited theatrical release from Kino Lorber.

When it comes to discussing Hard to Be a God, the film’s 40+ year journey to the screen becomes an inevitable topic, and not just because of that story’s compelling nature. It also helps provide context for watching German’s film. This is over 4 decades in the making, and every single frame shows it. German has ended his career on a bang so loud it can start an earthquake. The only thing I could do while watching Hard to Be a God was sit in awe at the onslaught of barbarity, at the realization of something so vivid and tactile yet horrifyingly alien. A film like this could only be made with decades of preparation.

An opening piece of narration sets the scene: it’s far into the future, and the setting is a faraway planet called Arkanar. The planet is exactly like Earth, except its civilization still remains far behind the times. They’re essentially living in a pre-Renaissance era, meaning everyone is a bumbling idiot at best or a complete savage at worst. Astronauts from Earth come down to observe the planet, with the hopes of finding and protecting the planet’s intellectuals so Arkanar can start making progress. One of these astronauts, Don Rumata (Leonid Yarmolnik), has spent years living on Arkanar, slowly going mad from the squalor surrounding him. One of the first scenes, where two men giddily laugh as they smear shit on each other, does all the necessary explaining for his growing insanity.

That sort of scene eventually becomes commonplace by the end of the film’s 3-hour runtime. Arkanar is, to put it simply, a hell hole. People frequently rape, kill and torture each other, everything gets treated as a toilet, and torrential rains turns the ground into mud going up to people’s knees. Rumata’s efforts to save intellectuals tends to go awry (early on, a poet gets drowned in a pool of excrement). Part of the plot involves Don Reba, a fascist dictator ruling the area Rumata resides in. To ensure his power won’t get threatened, he convinces the masses to blame the intellectuals for their problems. And unfortunately for Rumata, he can’t do too much to help; as an observer, he can’t get too involved or use his own advanced skills. He can only watch, pretending he’s on the same level as everyone else yet fully aware he can exert plenty of intelligence and power over them (hopefully by now the title will start making some sense).

Granted, the idea of spending 170 minutes watching nothing but misery certainly doesn’t sound appealing (there have been many stories of people fleeing the theatre, unable to take what German puts on-screen), but it’s by design. German shows humanity at its puerile worst, and his commitment to detailing such ugliness is awe-inspiring. It’s a film dedicated to putting viewers in a constant state of discomfort, with German using different techniques to make sure there isn’t a single moment of rest. The technique German uses most frequently, and to great effect, is throwing something into the foreground of a shot. Whether it’s a hand, a dead fish, a face, or anything else, watching these things suddenly enter the frame in extreme close-up creates an effect similar to watching a 3D film.

Cinematographers Vladimir Ilin and Yuriy Klimenko should also deserve a special mention alongside German, as their work feels revolutionary. Using frequent long takes with Steadicam, and shooting with black and white 35mm film, the camera veers and fumbles around every scene. Every shot uses deep focus, showing off each element in the frame in full detail. Every shot comes across like an event, with everything so meticulously constructed and choreographed it’s amazing to see all the organized chaos work so beautifully. The Steadicam’s movements, combined with German’s intense preparation, lend a documentary quality to some moments, as if a futuristic camera crew went back in time to film pre-Renaissance life. The fact that so many extras deliberately stare the camera down (yet another tactic by German to maintain a sense of unease) only adds to the feeling of observing something real, and not a fiction.

And ultimately, that’s what makes Hard to Be a God a great piece of cinema. Every second feels authentic, like looking into a completely different yet fully realized world. Plot and narrative take the backseat here; it’s there, but trying to comprehend it would be a fool’s errand. For me, at least on a first viewing, I had to let the film’s filth wash over me. Yes, German’s creation is extremely unpleasant, but it’s such a cinematic powerhouse it can’t be faulted. Hard to Be a God might be the closest thing to hell on film, and delving into German’s shit and mud-soaked world is an experience I can’t say I’ve had with any other film. It’s a staggering achievement, one bound to leave an impact for many years to come on the souls brave enough to get through it. It’s quite early, but I have a hard time imagining another film from this year topping Hard to Be a God. I kept getting reminded of films like 2001 and Playtime, where truly unique, singular visions comes to life through near-flawless execution. Films like these don’t come along very often. Hard to Be a God is an exhausting, disgusting, and draining experience. It’s also a complete masterpiece.

With their late night social lives, sensual eating habits, and lonely existences, vampires are already among the most romantic and mysterious of mythical beings. They’ve been used in plenty of different settings, but Ana Lily Amirpour‘s A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night may be the first to harness the ripeness of young love with a vampire, crossed with a black and white western, with a dash of Frank Miller’s nighttime crime scenery. More amazing is that this genre mix is executed in a way that is both artfully quiet and amazingly hip.

Here’s the premise: in the mythical Iranian scum town of Bad City the people fear the local thugs, either working for them or feeding their drug addictions as clientele. In such a town, James Dean-esque Arash (Arash Marandi) is a rare good guy, caring for his junkie father and working hard to afford his gorgeous vintage Thunderbird. At night a girl (Sheila Vand), her eyes rimmed black in eyeliner, covered from head to toe in a hijab, walks in the darkness, following men. One night she encounters Saeed (Dominic Rains), a self-absorbed and dangerous drug dealer who earlier that day took Arash’s beloved car as payment owed by his father for drugs. With nary a word Saeed is seduced by the girl’s dark eyes and lips. He takes her to his extravagant apartment, letting her look around while he indulges in some of his drugs, music pumping, eventually giving her a pathetic sexy dance. And when she does finally come near to him, placing his finger in her mouth seductively, she counters his intentions by cleanly biting off his finger before draining him completely. It’s horrifying, hilarious, and, somehow, heroic.

This is the gritty texture of Amirpour’s film. Shot in crisp black and white, the film’s setting is distinctly more California dust bowl than Iran, which makes sense since it was shot near Bakersfield. Oil pumps grind up and down, sucking black oil out of the ground while the girl drains the city slowly in her own way. And though she speaks quite rarely, the girl appears to be in all other respects aside from her late night diet, a typical, albeit lonely, young woman. She lives alone in an apartment where band posters paper her walls, a disco ball turns overhead, she wears skinny jeans and an oversized french-style striped shirt, and she plays the latest new wave music, dancing by herself in the fashion of a vampire girl yearning for more. At night she has a distinct taste: men, preferably the bad sort. In an especially frightening scene a young street urchin (Milad Eghbali) is stopped by the girl and she threatens him into always being a “good boy,” then takes his skateboard with her.

Thus, one night as she skateboards down a street in Bad City, hijab flowing behind her, the girl encounters Arash for the first time. He’s dejected and high after a bad party. His innocence intrigues her (and those big brown eyes as well) and she takes him home. The romance between the girl and Arash is entirely atmospheric. Amirpour takes her time, allowing the mood, strobing light, and dance-y music of Arash and the girl’s first moment of attraction to wash over viewers. It’s beautiful, and sexy as hell. Marandi is the good-boy-with-an-edge every girl—or vampire girl—dreams of, and he plays Arash with no sense of irony. Vand is an absolute delight, giving off a sweet and vulnerable school girl appeal that changes swiftly with a whiff of fresh blood. But she’s no animalistic vampire, she’s a woman in charge of her desires, as overpowering as they can sometimes be.

Between Arash’s old-fashioned principles, and the girl’s progressive (especially by Iranian ideals) position of power—exemplified by her murder of a man who had just before his death exploited a prostitute before leaving her in the dust penniless—the cultural censure is clear. Amirpour is transparent with her reversals, self-aware even, poking fun by dressing Arash in a Dracula costume when he first meets the girl, assuring her she has nothing to fear.

Lyle Vincent’s cinematography is as wide as any screen comes, capturing minute details in every two-tone high-contrast frame. Produced by Elijah Wood among others (well, he is a DJ and the soundtrack is phenomenal, maybe indie-music insiders really do all know each other), the film is written by Amirpour and one of the few things I might criticize her for is leaning a bit heavily on her visuals. Luckily, said visuals are so impressive they distract from any realizations that not only is dialogue between our romantic leads sparse, it’s almost non-existent, which makes the film’s ending seem slightly drastic, albeit not unsatisfying. My other complaint is a lack of backstory on this elusive and nameless “girl,” but ask and ye shall receive. Amirpour has written a comic book chronicling life in Bad City before the events of A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night to be simultaneously released with the film.

With all the charm of Amélie, all the horror of Nosferatu, all the youthful self-awareness of La Nouvelle Vague, and all the atmosphere of a black and white spaghetti western, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night manages to be a strong entry into any of the 6 or 7 genres and sub-genres it fits into. Captivating at every turn, watching the film is like seeing the birth of a trend come into style. Amirpour harnesses the essence of indie filmmaking in her début, showcasing an adroit and enticing talent the likes of which we don’t see every day.

The Overnighters feels like one of those rare, lightning in a bottle stories caught in a documentary. What are the odds of coming upon such an incredible story, let alone one that manages to be captured on camera? Life imitates art in the strangest ways, sometimes. Director Jesse Moss started working on The Overnighters as a profile of Williston, North Dakota, a small town going through an economic boom during America’s recession. Within Williston he found a remarkable subject for his film. Someone could easily adapt The Overnighters into a narrative feature, but it wouldn’t come close to matching the dramatic highs on display. It’s an extraordinary film, not only the best documentary of the year, but one of the best films to come out in 2014.

The use of fracking, a controversial technology used to extract oil, became a blessing for Williston when it opened up oil reserves near the town. Oil companies came in, handing out jobs with starting salaries in the 6-figure range. With Williston’s unemployment rate nearly wiped out, word travelled around, prompting people to start packing up their things and move in the hopes of securing a job (Moss shows a montage of YouTube clips from people across the country making their way to North Dakota). Williston became a boom town, the kind of sight one expects to see in a history book when reading about the Great Depression. And with so many new people moving in, the demand for a place to stay grew exponentially.

That’s where Jay Reinke comes into the picture. Reinke, a Pastor at the Lutheran Concordia Church, created the “overnighters” program in response to the growing need for shelter. People looking for work without a place to stay could sleep in the church until they get back on their feet, or use the parking lot to sleep in their car. Reinke looks at these people and sees an opportunity to help those in need, telling the camera how profound it is to have people from around the world coming to his doors asking for help. Moss also looks at several men staying at the church looking for work: former convict Alan, young father Keegan, and family man Michael, who left his family behind in Georgia so he could send money back to them once he finds a job.

Moss has all the makings for a feel-good story about Reinke’s virtuous actions, along with a redemption tale when it comes to the men staying in the church. Real life ends up going in another direction entirely. The murder of a local teacher by two men travelling through town looking for work sets off a feeling of hostility between Williston natives and the new arrivals. Some of the men staying at the church have criminal records, a fact the local newspaper eagerly reports, causing more worry and distress within the town. Locals begin working towards shutting down Reinke’s program, passing laws preventing people from sleeping in their vehicles. Through all of this, Reinke continues letting people into his church. “I don’t say ‘no’ very well…so it’s easier to say ‘yes’ and live with the consequences,” he says early on.

Those consequences come hard and fast once Reinke makes a decision to let one of the overnighters stay at his place instead of the church. It sets off a series of reactions that come to haunt Reinke, as slowly but surely his family and career come apart. Is Reinke selfish for his stubborn commitment to “love thy neighbour?” It’s easy to see how someone can look at Reinke’s unwavering commitment to his program and view him as admirable or ignorant. His family, especially his wife Andrea, support him no matter what, but they can’t hide the negative impact it has on their lives. At one point Andrea, on the verge of tears, quietly says “This is one of the hardest things we’ve ever had to do, and I’ll be glad when it’s done.”

Watching Reinke, his family, and his church unravel before his eyes is riveting to behold. Moss gets an incredible amount of access, filming one gripping moment after another. That’s because Moss always keeps the focus on the human aspect of the story. While Reinke continues fighting to keep helping people, Moss periodically changes the focus to Keegan, Alan or Michael. Amazingly, all three have their own compelling narrative arcs, the kind that could easily make up a separate film. There’s a universal appeal to watching all three men simply try to survive, working hard and living in trailers just so they can provide for themselves and their loved ones. The rhythmic way Moss films these segments gives a nice balance to the propulsive narrative of Reinke’s story.

And once the film starts coming to a close, The Overnighters turns into something truly great. Several subjects, including Keegan and Michael, don’t get happy endings, their fates determined more by circumstance than anything else. The way those profiles end reflects the human condition, but it’s Reinke’s last minute confession that makes for one of 2014’s biggest curveballs. It’s a revelation that redefines everything that came before it, creating a devastating and profound connection between Reinke and those he helped in the program. With that, The Overnighters comes full circle in a way that’s so unbelievable, it could only happen in real life. Films rarely make stories this great; the fact that something so inherently dramatic comes from the world of non-fiction makes this feel like a truly rare sight.

Want to know the definition of beguiling? Look no further than The Strange Little Cat. Ramon Zürcher’s debut feature definitely lives up to both of its title’s adjectives. At 69 minutes in length, it’s so brief it barely even qualifies as a feature. And every moment is absolutely strange. It’s an enigma of a film, something so simple on the surface and yet every scene feels like something isn’t quite right. It’s primarily in one location, but every frame is so densely packed and precisely composed it can get overwhelming. No matter what one’s opinion of The Strange Little Cat is, it accomplishes something rare: it’s seemingly incomparable, a film that feels completely distinct and original.

Look at reviews for The Strange Little Cat, and most of the time reviewers will describe scenes rather than get into story. That’s because there really is next to no plot. A German family spends the day preparing for a dinner. The closest thing to a main character is the mother (Jenny Schily). Her older children Karin (Anjorka Strechel) and Simon (Luk Pfaff) are visiting, and one by one more relatives show up to either help prepare or wait for dinner. On a basic level, that’s The Strange Little Cat in a nutshell.

But Zürcher isn’t interested in telling a story through conventional means. There’s an obsessive focus on environment and actions – on the way characters interact with each other and the apartment’s interior. Several people appear in the frame at a time, each performing some sort of mundane task like washing dishes or cleaning, conversing with each other or reacting to something going on just outside of the frame. Conversations occur between multiple characters at the same time, with each person weaving in and out of topics. Shots are composed to reveal surprises in the frame, like a character’s presence or an unexpected action in the background. A conversation between Karin and her mother is interrupted when a bag attached to a rope gets pulled up outside the kitchen window. The mother gets up from the dinner table, revealing the family cat sitting behind her the entire time. For such a small environment, these tricks are a delight to watch.

And that’s the amazing thing about The Strange Little Cat; for a chamber piece it’s bursting with so much liveliness and activity. Zürcher structures the film into segments, each one separated by a recurring musical piece and shots of items mentioned in previous scenes. Quiet moments are peppered throughout, usually an exchange between family members or someone delivering a monologue about a peculiar event in their life. It creates an off-kilter rhythm, one that goes along with the organized chaos invading every frame. The absurdity of these quotidian tasks piled so closely to one another also serves a purpose beyond admiring the balletic quality of the staging. It gives an insight into the distant, fractured relationship within the family. Each person tends to work alone, acting like they’re in their own ecosystem despite the commotion going on around them. It reveals a contradictory image: a communal gathering of isolated people.

Although reading too deeply into Zürcher’s film might not be too beneficial, as tempting as it may be. The uniqueness of The Strange Little Cat gives it a mysterious quality, one that probably won’t get satiated no matter how many times one watches the film. The attention to detail brings Jacques Tati’s work to mind, but Zürcher doesn’t go for broad physical gags or long shots. He squeezes everything into a tight space, letting the fascination of observing this sort of elaborate, abstract dance carry the film. It’s a daring move made all the more baffling and exciting by how well it works. With such a quick runtime, it’s hard not to find an excuse to watch The Strange Little Cat. Material this engagingly bizarre doesn’t come around often, let alone in such a small, neat package like this.