Little Girl Blue
Mona Achache brings invention, curiosity and raw vulnerability to excavate traces of three generations of female writers in her family and power abuses in France’s literary scene.
Cannes 2023
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Harrison Ford’s fond farewell to the long-running tomb raider franchise, ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’ balances formulaic blockbuster elements with soulful nostalgia and an audacious time-jumping plot.
Cannes 2023 Awards
Women filmmakers swept most of the top awards from Competition to Un Certain Regard and Critics’ Week.
Cannes 2023: The Verdict
Anointed auteurs padded the competition while the scramble for tickets became exhausting.
The Old Oak
After angry, affecting portraits of northern England’s working class families in his previous two films, in ‘The Old Oak’ director Ken Loach travels to a former mining village where Syrian refugees are being resettled, to tell a moving but more generic, less engaging story than its predecessors.
Bread and Roses
Sahra Mani’s raw documentary about the dire situation for women in Afghanistan, as well as those all but abandoned in so-called safe houses across the border, forces Western audiences to pay attention and stop averting their gaze from the Taliban’s reign of terror.
Perfect Days
In his minor-key but charming Cannes contender ‘Perfect Days’, German art-house veteran Wim Wenders delivers a poetic paean to Zen and the art of toilet maintenance.
Inside the Yellow Cocoon
Pham Tien An’s first feature follows a young man’s slow spiritual journey with long takes, magical imagery and rarely seen glimpses into Vietnamese society.
The Pot au Feu
The pièce de résistance of unabashed culinary cinema, Tran Anh Hung’s ‘The Pot au Feu’ serves up a French country idyll in romantic 19th century sauce for audiences whose tastes run to the fine wines and 12-course meals.
Power Alley
Brazilian newcomer Lillah Halla makes a film full of zest and empathy about a talented volleyball player that resonates in today´s pro-choice panorama.
Pictures of Ghosts
Kleber Mendonça Filho’s poetic docu-essay Pictures of Ghost is a passkey to his previous films as well as a personal reflection on his relationship with Recife and cinephilia, but this terrifically edited meditation is also a more universal ode to the way memories become ghosts that inhabit the physical spaces of our lives.
Terrestrial Verses
A sardonic angry look at Iran today, ‘Terrestrial Verses’ approaches the country’s malaise in a series of black comedy skits.
No Love Lost
Erwan Le Duc conjures a stylish and swoony look at the quick flame of first love and the lingering, unresolved pain of heartbreak.
CineVerdict: Cerrar los ojos
“Cerrar los ojos” es una apasionada y atractiva reflexión sobre el arte, la memoria, la identidad y la recuperación del tiempo pasado. Una película del venerado maestro vasco-español Víctor Erice, contada atípicamente, pero que típicamente aborda grandes temas.
Asteroid City
Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jason Schwartzmann and a cast of thousands reach for the stars in director Wes Anderson’s visually ravishing retro rom-com ‘Asteroid City’.
Close Your Eyes
A passionate, big-issue film from revered Spanish maestro Victor Erice, ‘Close Your Eyes” engagingly reflects on art, memory, identity and recapturing time past.
The Buriti Flower
Portuguese-Brazilian directors João Salaviza and Renée Nader Messora return to Cannes with a complex, highly-charged chronicle of how different generations of a Brazilian indigenous community fight back against intruders on their ancestral lands.
Man in Black
Chinese filmmaker Wang Bing’s second entry at Cannes 2023 is an intensely physical portrait of the life and tribulations of Chinese composer Wang Xilin.
The Other Laurens
In his feature-length debut, Claude Schmitz aims to simultaneously pay homage to, and blow up, film noir tropes, and while that’s not exactly the result, his film is a handsome, largely enjoyable play on the genre that becomes a bit too shaggy by the end.
The Book of Solutions
Back after a long hiatus with his most personal film to date, French writer-director Michel Gondry’s ‘The Book of Solutions’ is a scrappy, self-indulgent but entertaining love letter to asshole artists.
If Only I Could Hibernate
Japan-educated Mongolian filmmaker Zoljargal Purevdash’s first feature provides a sensitive yet sobering account of a teenager’s struggle for his family’s survival, even if it means sacrificing his own future.
Firebrand
Alicia Vikander steps into the robes of Henry VIII’s last queen in a drama more concerned with turning Katherine Parr into feminist icon than is historically believable, yet bold visuals and a fine cast raise the appeal of Brazilian auteur Karim Aïnouz’s first time in Cannes competition.
May December
The combined talents of Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore and veteran indie auteur Todd Haynes are largely wasted on humdrum Cannes competition contender ‘May December’.
Killers of the Flower Moon
Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro compete to out-grimace each other in Martin Scorsese’s latest monumental but lumbering period true-crime thriller ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’.
Banel & Adama
French-Senegalese director Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s strikingly shot, solid debut set in the Senegalese Sahel features a compelling central figure whose monomaniacal love for her husband sets nature itself against their village.
The Rapture
In this promising feature debut, French writer-director Iris Kaltenbäck has turned what sounds like a high-concept pitch for a Hollywood comedy — a girl tries to pass off her best friend’s baby as her own — into a thought-provoking, emotionally involving look at both motherhood and womanhood. Carried by two excellent leads, The Rapture (Le...
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The Zone of Interest
‘Sexy Beast’ and ‘Under The Skin’ director Jonathan Glazer makes his Cannes debut with his coldly compelling, boldly experimental Holocaust drama ‘The Zone of Interest’.
Four Daughters
An enthralling “fictional documentary” by Kaouther Ben Hania exploring the psychological states of a strong-headed Tunisian mother and her four daughters, two of whom joined Islamic State, through staged recreations and interactions with actors playing their roles.
About Dry Grasses
Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s melancholy, dialogue-heavy rumination on personal responsibility, politics and the weight of provincial isolation is intellectually rigorous and always engrossing but largely lacks the well-earned emotional gifts of his more recent masterworks.
Black Flies
A punishing, loud plunge into the brutality of EMT work in Brooklyn’s grittiest hoods that banks on Sean Penn’s stardom but is tone-deaf to its problematic treatment of immigrant communities and women.
CineVerdict: Los delincuentes
Una deliciosa ensoñación sobre cómo escapar de la adormecedora esclavitud diaria del capitalismo y encontrar el verdadero significado de la libertad. Los delincuentes es increíble hechizo de tres horas que seguramente será captado por múltiples territorios.
The Delinquents
A delicious reverie on escaping capitalism’s numbing daily drudge and finding the true meaning of freedom, “The Delinquents” is a rare three-hour charmer sure to be scooped up in multiple territories.
Youth (Spring)
Wang Bing’s intimate portrait of the Chinese youth who sew the world’s clothing for a pittance, ‘Youth (Spring)’ speaks truth to the global economy.
On the Edge
Nicolas Peduzzi’s doc following a devoted Paris psychiatrist on hospital rounds is as warmly human as it is indignant at the capitalist gutting of public services.
The Nature of Love
Ever since humans were able to grunt to communicate affection for another person, the world’s greatest minds have grappled with understanding and defining the elusive, unpredictable, and disorienting feeling of desire. If history’s deepest thinkers haven’t been able to sort out the riddle of affection, what chance do the rest of us have? Monia Chokri’s...
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Tiger Stripes
Malaysian writer-director Amanda Nell Eu’s groundbreaking Cannes premiere ‘Tiger Stripes’ is an offbeat body-horror monster movie with sharp feminist claws.
The Goldman Case
This riveting courtroom drama distils Pierre Goldman’s complex life into one of its defining moments while crafting a ranging reflection on past and present injustice.
Occupied City
’12 Years a Slave’ director Steve McQueen exhaustively chronicles the Nazi occupation of his adopted hometown Amsterdam in his formally adventurous but lumbering. disjointed documentary ‘Occupied City’.
A Brighter Tomorrow
Nanni Moretti returns to his forte, sardonic Italian socio-political commentary, in the meandering collage film ‘A Brighter Tomorrow’ (‘Il Sol dell’avvenire’).