Film Reviews

“Time doesn’t matter when you’re in love.” In Pawel Pawlikowski’s skilfully assured Cannes Competition feature Cold War, however, the passing of time matters greatly. We can see the initial yearnings of an attraction from the moment Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) and Zula (Joanna Kulig) first meet. He’s a composer, travelling around Poland in the hope of bringing together a troupe of folk musicians to perform authentic Polish song & dance in venues across the country, and beyond. She’s a singer, with...

After decades of male dominated action thrillers, both Breaking In and Revenge open this week with female leads. Whether this represents a wider shift within Hollywood is yet to be seen but the action heroics of Shaun Russell (Gabrielle Union) are refreshing and very welcome. Breaking In is set within Shaun’s childhood home, which she returns to with her children Jasmine (Ajiona Alexus) and Glover (Seth Carr) to settle the estate of her estranged father. Unbeknownst to her the house...

Never one to be bound by convention, Jean-Luc Godard decided to shun the customary post-premiere press conference for his new film, Image Book – playing in Cannes as part of the Official Competition – and instead opted to answer the questions due to be posed to him via a FaceTime video link. The actions of a visionary filmmaker making a wry joke about the evolving technologies now available across the media landscape, or of a narcissistic old buffer who desperately...

Not all heroes wear capes. Take Anna (Zsófia Szamosi), for example. From the outside looking in, she lives a simple and secure existence. Mother of three adorable children, living together in a spacious apartment with her husband, and working a job that’s both stable & rewarding. On the page, it sounds perfect. The reality, however, is a little more complicated. Dropping us into the middle of Anna’s life for roughly a 36-hour period – the title is something of a...

There’s a particularly telling scene early on in Ciro Guerra & Cristina Gallego’s riveting Columbian crime saga, Birds of Passage. Two friends are celebrating in a local shanty bar, reaping the rewards of their latest “business deal” – selling dope to members of the American Peace Corps. They raise their drinks, saluting the role capitalism has played in their newfound wealth. Though not directly related, Birds of Passage is something of a companion piece to Guerra’s previous film (which Gallego...

Though unlikely to be particularly indicative of a wider critical response, it’s impossible to ignore the snorts of incredulity that echoed throughout the Debussy theatre in the Cannes Palais, following a key narrative revelation halfway through Asghar Farhadi’s occasionally compelling but frustratingly contrived festival opener, Everybody Knows. Up until that moment of weakness, Farhadi’s quasi-thriller had displayed plenty of muscle. A modest opening act sets the scene well. Laura (Penélope Cruz) – accompanied by her two children, including her teenage...

About 25 minutes into Revenge, a close up of an ant heralds one of my favourite sequences in a 2018 film to date. For a second it’s just there, large and still in the middle of the screen. Then, in slow motion, with a sound effect like a crashing wave, a drop of blood falls on it. One, two, three, and more drops fall until the film returns to normal speed and the blood becomes a small lake, swallowing the...

Fans of Andrew Niccol will be all too than familiar with the director’s particular brand of Philip K Dick inspired output. From the timeless cult classic Gattaca which is set in a future where people are judged on the strength of their genetic make-up rather than on merit, to the slightly less well received In Time, in which time has replaced money as currency, creating a two-tier society in which only the rich can hope to live beyond the age...

The Young Karl Marx is directed by Haitian film-maker, Raoul Peck, whose previous work, I Am Not Your Negro - a documentary focusing on James Baldwin - earned him an Oscar nomination. His latest effort is an intense period drama of the early life and work of Karl Marx. The film does not make any concessions to the audience in presenting the subject matter from an intellectual point of view rather than an emotional one. This does not mean the film...