The atmosphere in this most British of supernatural horrors, is especially strong. Reminiscent of the early TV work of Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Alan Parker, the ever-mounting simplicity of this film gener...

What a strange pleasure to see the origin of so much; to see one’s own cinematic eyes looking back at you through a selection of Lumière’s works from a century ago.

The Oedipal nightmare in Refn’s film, displaying its aesthetic inheritance from Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, as well as the austere Bresson/Dreyer geometry of camerawork and editing, makes for a riveting ...

The externalising of the spiritual crisis at the heart of this film is well achieved, but what I find of interest on this second viewing of the film is its function within the film as metonymic for th...

An inspired choice for the film to only be composed of diegetic sounds. The immersive effect this imparts on the spectator’s experience is greatly appreciated; an appropriate evocation of tone, effect...

Extravagant in its construction, this neo-noir melodrama balances its elements well, though the final coup de grace ending is, in my view, a gauche finish.

A well acted spectacle, though the structural repetition and quality of dialogue leaves much to be desired.

Demme’s steadicams and dollies are excellent, especially when counterbalanced by Howard Shore’s mellifluous strings.

Much like “məmorᴉa” (2021) from Apichatpong Weerasethakul, “Personal Shopper” is Olivier Assayas working out a drama/mystery, which in its aesthetics is tangential to the post-horror of the 2010s-2020...

The mini dv cinematography allows for long takes amidst the sounds of Datong. In effect, a heightened realism is what the spectator becomes privy to, and the fictional narrative takes on a mythic tint...

A sharp evocation of space and the cinematic gaze.

The predominance of brightly lit scenes, and a spatialisation of sound almost always behind the frame are among the strong elements of this film, alongside its intelligent casting.

Similar aesthetic strategies as in François Ozon’s 2025 adaptation of “The Stranger”, and evincing the influence of Bresson, Haneke (Bresson’s Austrian son, in a way), and the Hungarian modernist dram...

Vulgarity and recrimination in this melodrama art film capture the spirit of Nabokov’s novel well, translating its linguistic slipperinesses into cinematic form through Fassbinder’s cross-cutting, and...

I find the construction of space in this drama reminiscent of the proscenium, and as such, this neo-Bressonian simplicity focuses spectatorial attention on the emotional states of the characters to an...

Perhaps what I appreciate most about this trilogy is the way in which the irony of the performance of personal identity increasingly becomes the central axis by which these films turn. The spectator i...

Beautifully Rohmerian in parts, this film is structured in a manner akin to a Socratic dialogue. Yet once more, that dialogue crosses through the screen and through the formal juxtapositions and indet...

A strong adaption of the video game into the cinematic form. The mix of steadicam and game aesthetics makes for an unsettling Möbius strip of a film. The choice to use Bolero as the principal music is...

Chabrol the master craftsman, French son of Hitchcock, guides the eye and the mind expertly in this tale of bourgeois menace. Incidentally, this film is the basis for much of Andrey Zvyagintsev’s 2026...

Astounding, what cinema can be! In the final section, “The Bell”, a microcosm of the film’s story and its meta production history are married together in this magnificently directed drama.

Evocative in its abstractness, Russell’s direction of Jacquetta Hawkes’ script makes clear the strangeness and epistemic inconclusiveness of the anthropologist’s Othered eye.

Revisiting this film, I am struck afresh by its drama of intersubjectivity. The aesthetic choice to have the married couple communicate only through the mediums of direct address to the camera and ver...

Brilliant.  Great casting, and a memorable soundtrack. The kind of mid budget studio feature that I suspect audiences today would respond to very favourably.

In their third feature film, writer-director Jane Schoenbrun mounts a genre crabwalk from the horror-dramas of their first two, into a decidedly more comedic register. However, the attempt to do so, m...

Magisterial. The control of space and distance is excellent. Chekhovian and unhurried, this form of time evolves into the mounting psychic tension.

Terrible. A strange, dull melange of Neil Marshall’s “Doomsday” (2008), Jonathan Nolan’s “Fallout” TV series, and the plethora of post 2010 American/Canadian apocalyptic teen shows, “The Dog Stars” is...

Peripatetic. Isaach de Bankolé and Matt Dillon are well cast, and their scenes take on a Beckettian menace that the two actors make strange and engrossing. This atmosphere of disavowal and asymptotic ...

A well made thriller, balanced between past and future systems of revenge, and a mode of spectatorial participation in the violence.

The strange courses of language and interleaved signs are the focus of this short. I found the voiceover to be effective; the more information given by its description, the further into contextual and...

Constructed primarily through visual inference, and thus dependent upon the spectator’s participation to actively construct the meaning of this film in a manner that is of a piece of the art cinema of...

Strange and mellifluous, yet the demonstration of aesthetic control through the intelligence and strangeness of perception is impressive. Here, one finds a film that is utterly itself.

One of my absolute favourites, and therefore automatically one of the greatest American films of all time.

Finally being able to see this film on a cinema screen was a treat. A strong blend of animation and well cast human actors together. One hopes for more Looney Tunes films like this to come.

A mostly engaging intergenerational talent haunting and possession. Accomplished well enough through the expected cliches of the franchise and contemporary Blumhouse horror house style.  A slightly co...

No Password Required is back this year with support from the BFI/National Lottery. Advanced development funding for global majority Producers working on first feature as lead producer. Deadline to app...

The circuitous performances of memory, distance, and indecipherable reasons for behaving as they do - reasons we must nevertheless continually attempt to decipher, for to do so is the essence of our h...

Lav Diaz’s “Hugaw” displays a decoupage which at first appears austere, yet reveals itself through the interaction of the spectator, to display mythic proportions. Because the closeup is excluded from...