Dealing with the aftermath of a tragedy turns a once warm and ebullient family man into a solemn, withdrawn, and angry loner in Kenneth Lonergan’s (“Margaret”) bittersweet drama Manchester by the Sea, one of the best films of 2016. Set in the picturesque city of Manchester on Massachusetts’ north shore, cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes (“Martha…
Fear that your children may mimic your worst qualities is the driving force in Hirokazu Koreeda’s (“Our Little Sister”) After the Storm (Umi yori mo mada fukaku), a compassionate look at the struggles of a Japanese family. Its title derived from the lyrics of an old pop song, the film is set in Kiyose, a…
Dedicated to Ozu star Setsuko Hara, Argentine director Matías Piñeiro’s Hermia and Helena follows his three previous films, “Viola,” “The Princess of France”, and “Rosalinda,” with a work depicting characters loosely based on female heroines in William Shakespeare’s comedies. Shot in Buenos Aires and partly in New York, the film centers on Camila (Agustina Muñoz,…
Gorgeous colors and graceful poetic images mark The Red Turtle (La tortue rouge), a wordless 80-minute animated film co-produced by the famed Japanese Studio Ghibli and Dutch animator Michael Dudok de Wit. Made in France, the dialogue-free film was produced by Takahata Isao and co-written by French director Pascale Ferran whose 2014 film “Bird People”…
While The Unknown Girl, the latest film by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (“Two Days, One Night”), is suggestive of social and political issues such as immigration, unemployment, and economic imbalance, its main concern is with moral character, accountability, and spiritual redemption. Like many other films of the Dardenne Brothers, it is simple, natural, and direct,…
A poignant love story, Arnaud Desplechin’s (“Jimmy P.”) My Golden Days (Trois souvenirs de ma jeunesse) is filled with warmth and humor and delivered with a lively and playful touch in the Desplechin style: The use of voice-overs, split screens, the iris-effect, and characters looking and speaking directly into the camera. Challenging us with numerous…
Un Certain Regard prize winner at the Cannes Film Festival, Rams (Hrútar) is a comedy/drama where communication is a luxury until it becomes a matter of survival. Directed by Grímur Hákonarson (“Summerland”) and set in a remote village in Iceland, it is the story of two unmarried brothers, Gummi (Sigurður Sigurjónsson, “Brave Men’s Blood”) and…
