Un Certain Regard entry Once Upon a Time in Gaza is a topical film, yet unfortunately, it doesn’t feel like its helping anything.
Once Upon A Time in Gaza Lacks A Coherent Viewpoint
Redmond Bacon
Redmond is the editor-in-chief of Journey Into Cinema.
Peak Everything. Love and Climate Change.
A depressed kennel owner falls in love with a phone technician in Quebecois comedy Peak Everything, the rare fest film with crossover appeal.
I Only Rest in the Storm. A Complicated Neo-Colonial Picture.
I Only Rest in the Storm is an epic exploration of the relationship between Africa and the West that fiendishly complicates stereotypical portrayals.
A Useful Ghost’s House of Haunted Hoovers
Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s debut feature A Useful Ghost is a remarkably profound — and silly — reverie on love, loss and assimilation.
Le Brutaliste
The construction of the Grande Arche de la Défense is recreated in loving detail in Stéphane Demoustier’s crowdpleasing, yet underwhelming The Great Arch.
Kika’s Dominatrix Service
BDSM and domination is used as a metaphor for the human condition in Alexe Poukine’s Kika, a deeply heartfelt tale about overcoming grief.
The Girl in The Snow Cleverly Belies Its Classical Aesthetic
Multiple layers of ambiguity characterise Louise Hémon’s debut feature, a fascinating turn-of-the-century tale about the snowy road to enlightenment.
Death Does Not Exist Traipses Aimlessly Through the Forest
A fine animation style is wasted by a deadeningly boring script in Félix Dufour-Laperrière’s surrealist eco-thriller Death Does Not Exist.
L’Aventura Travels Free from the Anxiety of Influence
The very definition of a hangout movie, ACID opener L’Aventura explores the quotidian moments that most contemporary cinema often breezes by.
The Wedding Banquet. Boring Gay Asians.
The Wedding Banquet is a broad remake of Ang Lee’s 1993 work that drains the rich cultural specificity of the subject matter into boring slop.