An Iranian film about a doctor who becomes obsessed with idea that he might be responsible for the death of a boy after they are in a minor car accident together. This despite the fact that the boy is found to have died of botulism from eating tainted meat and didn’t die until days after…
The worst kind of Yes voter masturbatory persecution fantasy. Three friends sleepwalk into a dystopian future, unable to see the oncoming political threat over their attention-consuming everyday lives. Despite the heavy-handed nature of the story and having all the marks of a first film, it does achieve a warmth and sympathy for the characters and…
An unrelentingly grim Russian film, that culminates in a weird dream sequence that you hope is shielding you from the awful thing that is actually happening to the main character, but no, it cuts back in time for you to see her vicious and explicit gang-rape in a ghastly, seemingly never-ending final scene.
Basically Running Man in a house. Utterly dull, nothing to say about it, just RAT-A-TAT! BOOM! roll credits.
A beautiful film about street children running from gangs in Mexico, and escaping into the world of their imagination and the unnoticed magic of the real world. Shades of Pan’s Labyrinth but also The Secret Garden, but set in a reality that’s utterly brutal.
A fun darkly comic seasonal splatstick.
A film about a restaurant owner who snaps during a robbery and decides to kill his assailants, customers and staff. Doesn’t make sense in terms of either character or plot. Gash.
A film about an obnoxious, spoilt teenager dabbling in black magic to resolve her mummy issues and getting her comeuppance. Despite some honking teen dialogue, movie remained watchable in large part, if a little over-stretched.
Something of a children’s fable or a folk story. It’s beautiful and the costuming in it is great, evoking stuff like Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal. With writhing demons and lost children, it hits somewhere between Legend and Pan’s Labyrinth. Great movement work from the demons too.
A film about a lighthouse and its occupants under seige from fish-people on a remote island. It’s kind like the anti-Shape of Water, because instead of a woman falling in love and saving a fish-man, a guy kidnaps, rapes and beats a fish-woman. This sparks off the conflict, which is represented as a microcosm of…