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Berlinale Day 3: No Intenso Agora (2017)
This was the best movie I had the chance of watching at the Berlinale. It’s a strange mix of analytical-poetic-social justice, that ultimately leaves a lingering sense of how fleeting and unique some of the most important moments of our lives can be. Read more
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Sour Grapes (2016): Schadenfreude
Ultimately, even for someone with no taste for wine, I was excited by the end, having sat through this very particular tasting menu of intricate lies. Read more
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Pozitia Copilului (2013): People at its Heart
What sets Netzer’s film apart from some of the other recent Romanian works of cinema is its sardonic humor which works best when it’s aimed at the characters and not at some of the pervasive practices of society. Read more
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Sieranevada (2016): A Winter Wonderland
Sieranevada feels true. It’s a bit of a nightmare, sure, but it also manages to find and weave its story with quality fabric, highlighting meaningful contrasts between society, family and the individual and their ‘forced’ cohabitation. And it is ostensibly a universal story about the inner workings of family life. Read more
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The Baby (1973): A Slight Phenomenon
The Baby goes from drama, to comedy, to thriller, to horror in a seamless manner and actually gets away with it by the end with some glorious twists to boot. Read more
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The Myth of the American Sleepover (2010): The Fetish Rises
The Myth of the American Sleepover is just a great throwback to a kind of simpler time, set in an undefined past where technology did not rule our teenage minds. It’s pure fantasy. Read more
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Amy (2015): Discovering Anew
The 2015 documentary about Amy Winehouse, a strong follow-up piece from Senna’s (2010) Asif Kapadia, is a grueling, yet riveting portrayal of assassination by fame. Read more
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The Family Fang (2015): Sibling Togetherness
After ‘Bad Words’, Bateman the director appears to be heading in the right direction and takes on a more ambitious, layered project. This film deals not only with a dysfunctional family, a concept that has fascinated American cinema ever since American Beauty (1999), but also with the relation between art and life. Thematically, the family Read more
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An Honest Liar (2014): The Skeptic Inside
There truly is something mystical about An Honest Liar, that allows it to transcend its flawed structure and be relevant in spite of it. At its core, the ambition of the film is to establish and walk the line between what constitutes an illusion and what rises to the rank of deception. To achieve this, Read more
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Taxi (2015): A Journey Around Censorship
Somewhere, in the corner of my mind, the information about Jafar Panahi’s predicament was lying around unguarded. His 2010 jail sentence and twenty year ban from filmmaking were a result of what was deemed as propaganda against the Iranian government. Obviously, it has not hindered him in producing three movies since, all smuggled outside the Read more
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