According to award-winning Israeli director Nadav Lapid (“The Kindergarten Teacher”), “art has the right to be chaotic and wild, to go to extreme and dangerous places.” If you are looking for chaotic and wild, you need look no further than his Synonyms (Milim Nirdafot), a mystifying and often maddening film that will either leave you…
You cannot find Bacurau on any map of Brazil. That is because the town is fictional. The problem is that the residents of this small community in the northeast corner of Brazil can no longer find their town on Google Maps, or any GPS system either. Other strange things soon begin happening in Bacurau, winner…
“Well, the doctor interrupted me just about then, Sayin, ‘Hey I’ve been havin’ the same old dreams, But mine was a little different you see. I dreamt that the only person left after the war was me. I didn’t see you around.’” — Bob Dylan, “Talking World War III Blues” Portals begins with a white…
Over the last twenty years, the Dardenne brothers’ (“The Unknown Girl”) social realist dramas about the forgotten and the marginalized have been honored at the Cannes Film Festival with two Palme d’Ors, two Best Performance awards, one Best Screenplay award, and one Grand Prix. Their magic is still in evidence in their latest film, Young…
“And it feels like it’s so long till morning” — Kate Rusby, “Until Morning” While many holocaust survivors openly express rage and uncontrolled bitterness towards their persecutors, other survivors display only an emotional deadness and a pervasive feeling of being alone and scared. In the movie “Fateless,” Gyuri, a young man sent to Buchenwald, moves…
Hong Kong director Yonfan’s (“Venice 70: Future Reloaded”) mesmerizing animated film No.7 Cherry Lane (“Jìyuántái qihào”) is steeped in nostalgia yet seeks a balance between past, present, and future. His first film in ten years, No.7 Cherry Lane is Yonfan’s ode to the city of Hong Kong, to cinema in the sixties, and to the…
A man, semi-forced into an early retirement, receives a gift from his former staff in the form of virtual reality glasses. Not just ordinary Oculus-type glasses but rather augmented-reality specs with a personal assistant named Auggie that only the wearer can see. The man comes to bond with his Auggie in ways that both enable…
