Los Silencios (2019)

Direction: Beatriz Seigner
Country: Brazil / Colombia / France

Los Silencios, the sophomore feature film by Brazilian writer/director Beatriz Seigner, is a conscious refugee tale and a saddened look into war, loss, forgiveness, and relocation, all wrapped in political package.

The occurrences take place in an interesting milieu, a tiny swamped Amazonian island located at the border of Brazil, Colombia and Peru, which doesn’t really belong to any of these countries. Amparo Gomez (Marleyda Soto) had been living in San Martín, in the interior of Colombia, with her guerrilla-supporter husband, Adão (Enrique Diaz), and their two children, the effusive Fabio (Adolfo Savilvino), 9, and the speechless Nuria (María Paula Tabares Peña), 12.

After her husband went missing in the battle against the oppressive Colombian paramilitary, she was threatened to death and ultimately resolved to flee to the cited island, where aunt Abuelita (Doña Albina), is waiting for them. The latter puts a word in her favor to the president of the island (Heider Sanchez) since she dwells there for 20 years. However, he is more interested in making business with greedy rich men than sheltering another refugee. The islanders are furious because the government wants them to sell their houses for a very low price in order to build a casino and a resort. Whether in big cities or small towns, this is a recurrent situation that keeps contaminating our society. The story increases the enigmatic tones when Adão arrives on the island. Is he real or a ghost?

Despite occasionally veiled with haziness and bringing no nuance to the lukewarm ambiance, the film is observant, compassionate, and holds up the longer you analyze it. The blend of gritty, sad realism and otherworldly connection has proved substantial.

The Emperor of Paris (2019)

Direction: Jean-François Richet
Country: France

After successful collaborations with Vincent Cassel in the two-part biographical crime film Mesrine (2008) as well as in the comedy One Wild Moment (2015), French helmer Jean-François Richet re-teams up with the actor in The Emperor of Paris, a Napoleonic adventure he co-wrote with Éric Besnard. If the director’s previous effort, Blood Father (2016), showed his ability and predilection for the crime thriller genre, this new incursion into France’s 19th-century history offers him alternative resources to explore brutal action scenes and the mundane quests for power.

Here, he sketches a satisfactory portrait of François Vidocq, a renowned criminal and eternal escapee turned private detective. In clear terms, Vidocq (Cassel) exults with the victories but also cries his losses in silence, including his beloved lover, Annete (Freya Mavor). In all cases, he keeps faithful to the principle of always working alone, something that the ambitious Nathanael de Wenger (August Diehl), a former prison mate whose main purpose is to conquer the ‘streets’ of Paris, doesn’t accept willingly. While he becomes Vidocq’s worst enemy, the central character is coerced to join the police and undermine the underground world in exchange for freedom. Even loving the shadows a bit too much, he is given the choice to work for his country. Can he do it?

Treasons, unexpected alliances, cold assassinations, and dynamic fights are spices used in a recipe overcooked with a histrionic score and that sort of overworked production that may drive some viewers away. Nevertheless, the tonally consistent handle of the script and Cassel’s ardent performance make it moderately arresting and fairly watchable.

The Dead Don't Die (2019)

Direction: Jim Jarmusch
Country: USA

In recent years, acclaimed director Jim Jarmusch showed his versatility by successfully changing the themes of his films. He cleverly explored the world of vampires in Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), documented the American punk band The Stooges in Gimme Danger (2016), and offered one of the smartest and most engaging stories from 2016 with Paterson. His new movie, The Dead Don’t Die is a George A. Romero-inspired zombie-comedy pastiche whose connection with the previous three films are the actors. Tilda Swinton is the character who fascinated me the most, yet Jarmusch also convened Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Steve Buscemi, Chloë Sevigny, Tom Waits, Danny Glover, Caleb Landry Jones, and Iggy Pop, who makes a brief yet authoritative appearance as a zombie.

When radio signals repeatedly fail and the days become inexplicably longer in the small town of Centerville, the local police force - represented by the easygoing Cliff (Murray), the suspicious and cerebral Ronnie (Driver), and the super sensitive Mindy Morrison (Sevigny) - starts to think about Hermit Bob (Waits), an apparently aggressive caveman that lives in the forest for years without never hurting anyone. The cops immediately drop the suspect when an unexpected zombie attack takes place at the local bar (the pair of blood drinkers and flesh eaters are Iggy Pop and Sara Driver), leaving a general sense of fear in the air.

If the apathetic police officers behave passively, a local gas station owner, Bob Wiggins (Jones), and the fearless Scottish sword master, Zelda Winston (Swinton), are pretty committed to fighting the walking corpses. The latter, even enjoys a close relationship, sort to speak, with the dead since she works as an undertaker at the Ever After Funeral Home. In the film’s most imbecilic scene, she is teleported into a UFO.

There’s nothing we haven't seen before in The Dead Don’t Die, with the aggravation that its course is predictable and slow, the deadpan humor only works intermittently, and its action scenes are dully bland. Jarmusch has definitely the passion, but he didn’t have the brains to take this caricatural experience to the next level. Unfortunately, that contagious, nightmarish side we hope to find in a film of this nature is missing.

Never Look Away (2018)

Direction: Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck
Country: Gerrmany

The new film from German filmmaker Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck, who showed capable of the best with The Lives of Others (2006) and the worst with The Tourist (2010), brings together Tom Schilling, Sebastian Koch, and Paula Beer in an epic post-war drama mounted with solid production values, melodramatic brush strokes, and archetypal storytelling. Despite the crowd-pleasing schemes commonly associated with this type of film, Koch gives us some good reasons to keep seated in our chairs and watch it.

The story follows the romance between Kurt Barnet (Schilling), a struggling painting student artistically tied up to the dominant socialist realism of the time, and Ellie Seebrand (Beer), the daughter of a savvy, if unscrupulous, gynecologist and a proud member of the SS medical corps, Professor Carl Seebrand (Koch). It had been the latter who, in 1937 in Dresden, marked Kurt’s mentally-ill aunt, Elizabeth May (Saskia Rosendahl), to be annihilated.

Kurt is admitted in a liberal art school in Dusseldorf but keeps being haunted by memories of a never-to-be-forgotten past. There, he will find an incomparable opportunity to speak with his own voice and build a real life with Ellie. But none of that can be achieved without sacrifice and tolerance, especially with his obnoxious father-in-law in control of their lives.

Donnersmarck drew inspiration from visual artist Gerhard Richter. This is a grand story, yet perhaps too lustrously depicted to work in full. I was never bored, though.

Ray & Liz (2019)

Direction: Richard Billingham
Country: UK

Not many debutant directors have sufficient developed skills to make a grand first appearance, but photographer Richard Billingham achieved that feat with Ray & Liz, a tremendously impactful drama set in the Midlands, England, whose prodigious realism entraps us in the cruel, deeply rooted memories of his joyless childhood.

Combining the raw cinematic exposure of Andrea Arnold and the visual aesthetics of Chantal Akerman, Billingham dives into a disciplined, if rugged, autobiographical drama depicted with traces of bleak humor amidst parental negligence, indifference, and addiction.

The film comes in the sequence of previous short-documentary videos about his family as well as the first of a three-part feature named Ray, in which his alcoholic father is portrayed. Actually, the film’s inaugural shot consists in Ray (Patrick Romer) drinking a full glass of booze in an empty stomach. He is a heavy drinker abandoned to the solitude of a room infested with flies and seems to be patiently waiting for his death. His good neighbor Sid (Richard Ashton) is the only person visiting him, guaranteeing his daily supply of strong liquor. The story then winds back and we observe the routines of a younger Ray (Justin Salinger), his bellicose wife and compulsive smoker Liz (Ella Smith), and their two children: ten-year-old Richard (Jacob Tuton) and two-year-old Jason (Callum Slater).

This phase of the account features a particular episode that really sticks hard into the head. It's when Lol (Tony Way), an obtuse neighbor, drinks until unconscious while looking after Jason in the absence of his dysfunctional parents. After that, the story advances eight years in time to shock us even more with a dirty, unruly house and the inert, soporific behavior of Ray and Liz (her older version is played by Deirdre Kelly). At 18, Richard (Sam Plant) looks resigned with the situation, while Jason, now 10 (Joshua Millard-Lloyd), finds new hopes after almost freezing to death.

Admirably photographed by Daniel Landin (Under the Skin), the film represents a blasting match of stylish filmmaking and genuine writing material. It’s a wonderful debut, despite all the discomfort one may feel watching it.

The Burial of Kojo (2019)

Direction: Sam Blitz Bazawule
Country: Ghana

Ghanian writer/director Sam Blitz Bazawule delivers a sensitively imagined tale, showing his undeniably precious qualities as a multifaceted creator of moods in his grand feature debut The Burial of Kojo. Impressively, there’s nothing sloppy in this micro-budgeted piece entirely shot in Ghana with a local crew and many non-professional actors. Each frame was conceived with an enchanting if poignant aura in order to heighten the characters’ emotional states. I was immediately drawn into this trancelike story loaded with mystery, guilt, resentment, magical bewitchment, and the common burdens of life.

Esi (Cynthia Dankwa as a child and Ama K. Abebrese as an adult) narrates her childhood, feeling she never brought luck to her struggling father, Kojo (Joseph Otsiman), after she was born. Yet, they have a very close relationship, living in a tiny isolated village surrounded by water, to where Kojo moved seven years before.

Unexpectedly, they are surprised by a couple of visits that will change their lives. The first one is from a blind stranger seeking a child with a pure heart to whom he can entrust a sacred bird he has been protecting from an evil crow. The second one, more familiar, is Kojo’s brother Kwabena (Kobina Amissah-Sam), who insists on taking his brother back to the city. A strange request, if we take into account their complicated relationship due to tumultuous past incidents.

Kojo finds a miserable city with no opportunities and ruled by aggressive Chinese exploiters who took over the gold mines, depriving the local families of sustenance. But are they really the ones Kojo should be afraid of?

I loved the way the film was shot, from the oneiric tones of Michael Fernandez’s cinematography to the vivid, harrowing scene of eating a roach alive to the stylish architectural perspectives captured in the city. Watching this human story unfold is an uncommonly moving experience that makes The Burial of Kojo a small yet potent African film.

John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (2019)

Direction: Chad Stahelski
Country: USA

Thrilling, enigmatic, and impeccably shot, the third entry in the John Wick neo-noir saga is not for the fainthearted, standing above the mediocrity that keeps enveloping the action-thriller genre. Under stuntman Chad Stahelski’s sure-handed directorial style, Keanu Reeves embraces the title character with no smiles in a hectic performance at the physical level, but pretty relaxed in terms of lines.

Even though his life now worths $14 million, the ‘excommunicado' and former assassin John Wick manages to escape his avid hunters with the precious help of a bunch of old pals. While Wick runs desperately throughout the streets of Manhattan, experiencing uncanny encounters and trying to evade fierce opponents, the ones who helped him are severely punished by the obscure, authoritarian council of high-level crime lords called the High Table, here almost fully represented by The Adjudicator (Asia Kate Dillon), a powerful female figure committed to track him down. She relies on Zero (Mark Dacascos), a relentless Japanese assassin hired to bring him down.

However, through his valuable underground contacts, Wick reaches Casablanca, where he re-encounters a former colleague, Sofia (Halle Berry returns in big). She prudently accepts to help him find The Elder (Saïd Taghmaoui), the only man above The High Table that can set him free, but not without a little revenge to settle their sore past.

Violent images filled with shooting rampages, knife-throwing disarrays, and spectacular chases combine with flawlessly choreographed physical fights, rather provoking and entertaining than actually disturbing.

With a terrific score fitting hand-in-glove with the noir imagery and a top-notch supporting cast elevating this chapter into a fairly good position, Parabellum surprises with a mix of comic book angst and tricky escapism.

Rolling Thunder Revue (2019)

Direction: Martin Scorsese
Country: USA

Celebrated filmmaker Martin Scorsese has shown his knack for music documentaries with solid works such as The Last Waltz (1978), Shine a Light (2008), and George Harrison: Living in the Material World (2011). However, his efforts reveal disappointing results in Rolling Thunder Revue, a sort of mockumentary with real and fake footage and fabricated interviews about Bob Dylan’s legendary concert tour in the mid-70s. The series of concerts would allow Dylan to perform in smaller venues in a more intimate connection with the audience. The political context comes forward and goes well with the confrontational activism of the talented young musicians, who abandoned themselves to socially conscious, politically charged music.

While Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, and Allen Ginsberg were actually part of this American caravan, the unsatisfied filmmaker Stefan Van Dorp, event promoter Jim Gianopulos, and Rep. Jack Tanner are all fake characters played by actors. Moreover, Scorsese utilizes Sharon Stone, in flesh and bone, as tantalizing bait to his story, increasing the mordancy when she states, flattered, that “Just Like a Woman” was written for her. Conversely, the story behind the protest song “Hurricane”, written for boxer Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter, is authentic.

The music is great, yet this artful satire never really stood out as something really big, working more like a benign prankster spreading misinformation than giving a consistent insight about the topic. In a similar way, the interviews only served to make things more recondite, enhancing the artificiality of a make-believe that, at least, could have put an extra effort to be funnier. Rolling Thunder Revue doesn’t break any ground and proves more unimaginative than impressionistic.

Paterloo (2019)

Direction: Mike Leigh
Country: UK

Mike Leigh is a wonderful director who showed all his brilliance in titles like Secrets & Lies, Another Year, Naked and Vera Drake, among others. His directorial reputation is certainly not ruined with Peterloo, a historical account that recreates the 1819 massacre of the same name, even if the film doesn’t work for most of its duration.

Sir John Saxton (John Paul Hurley), a soldier known for his great achievements but with no time for politics, is promoted to commander of the Northern District and assigned to work in Manchester with the mission to locate and identify the insurgents who keep supporting radical campaigns against the government. The English nation became divided and people demand not only a Parliamentary reform but also voting rights extension and the repeal of the Corn Laws, which is responsible for the rising of poverty. Women also gather in protest.

Henry Hunt (Rory Kinnear), an excellent orator and agitator, leads the radicals and becomes a target for the government spies as he organizes a crucial meeting at St. Peter’s Field. Other outstanding reformists are John Bagguley (Nico Mirallegro), an 18-year-old machinist with a penchant for powerful speeches, and the passionate Samuel Bramford (Neil Bell), who spearheads a group of supporters from Middleton but gets disappointed with the impossibility to speak publicly. Local magistrates trust the Manchester Yeomanry, a volunteer armed regiment, to put an end in the meeting and arrest Hunt, but the operation ended in a brutal attack against the vehement yet peaceful laboring-class protesters as well as innocent people, including women and children.

I classify this period chamber piece as a long, drawn-out journey in which every scene is overextended far beyond the interest of its content. Every radical phrase deserves a time-consuming cheer, which is despairing sometimes. The visual presentation is lyrical and luminous, impeccably controlled by the cinematographer Dick Pope, whose frames resemble Realist paintings. However, the dialogues, speeches, and ideas repeat to the point of making the progression of the film a burden. This is the type of film where no one in the cast really stands out, while Leigh’s linear narrative wasn’t particularly attractive this time.

Wobble Palace (2019)

Direction: Eugene Kotlyarenko
Country: USA

Starting promisingly, Wobble Palace combines post-mumblecore comedy and millennial romance but turns out more pathetic than astute. The film is slightly provocative, though, albeit the mind-numbness you may experience with the sexual rites and erotic fantasies of the one-dimensional leads. Even inevitably chuckling in the most ridiculous situations, I can’t pronounce it a funny experience.

The clear, crisp cinematography of Sean Price Williams (Alex Ross Perry and Safdie Brothers’s regular choice) became the most substantial aspect of a pretentiously artsy comedy written, starred, and directed by Eugene Kotlyarenko. In his fifth feature, he plays Eugene, a funny-haired native of Russia who lives in Los Angeles and goes through an experiential, still on-going breakup process with his girlfriend Jane, played by co-writer Dasha Nekrasova.

While Eugene invites several women to the cute apartment he still shares with Jane, the latter actually starts something apparently more serious with her friend Ravi Gupta (Vishwam Velandy), a wealthy Indian guy and Trump-supporter with whom she has a strong chemistry. However, this trial phase goes awry for both of them and out-and-out separation seems the unavoidable next step.

The spirit and looks of the independent cinema are on display. Still, the plot is too flimsy and unconcerned, climaxing with a boring and despondent Halloween party where it’s hard to distinguish between what is meant to be funny. With a little more thought and less gaudy scenes, the film could have found a better outcome. Nevertheless, Wobble Palace is just an unorthodox trinket providing very limited enjoyment.

Non-Fiction (2019)

Direction: Olivier Assayas
Country: France

French auteur Olivier Assayas, an important figure in the European contemporary cinema since the ‘90s, tells a conversational modern-day tale, slightly inspired by Eric Rohmer's The Tree, the Mayor and the Mediatheque (1993) and containing some pertinent observations about hypocrisy in the art world - the emphasis is on literature and cinema - and the effects of the ever-evolving technology. Non-Fiction stars a talented ensemble cast with Juliette Binoche, Guillaume Canet, Vincent Macaigne, and Nora Hamzawi embarking on extensive dialogues that oscillate between well-rounded and routine.

Canet’s Alain Danielson is an ambitious Parisian publisher totally immersed in the digital development of literature. His wife, Selena (Binoche), is a successful TV actress who complains about being a hostage of her profession. While the husband is sexually involved with Laure (Christa Théret), his freewheeling young assistant, the wife maintains a long-standing affair with the struggling writer Leonard Spiegel (Macaigne), who prefers chaos to authority and stutters every time a journalist makes him uncomfortable questions about his books.

The latter almost never agrees with his busy, often insensible wife, Valerie (Hamzawi), but they have fun together, nurturing their relationship with enthusiastic discussions about art, politics, and Leonard’s real-life-inspired writings. Valerie works for David, a left-wing political candidate, whose transparency becomes blurred after a sex scandal. In order to spice things up, Alain refuses to publish Leonard’s new work, considering it repetitive and boring.

Loaded with multiple discussions and personal opinions, the film sometimes lacks some sort of empathic envelope, playing the extramarital affairs as enhancers for tension. However, it finishes much better than it starts, gradually creating a lived-in sense of roominess to expose the world of the characters.

Shot in 16 mm, this Assayas’ satisfying yet unremarkable effort is not as strong as The Clouds of Sils Maria (2014) or Personal Shopper (2016), but becomes exquisitely affecting in its final third. Non-Fiction’s main strength is perhaps the non-judgmental posture together with the acceptance of life, with all its complex phases, as it is. Yet, I felt this was the type of story that Truffaut would make look charmingly witty, whereas Chabrol would turn into a pseudo-thriller.

Rocketman (2019)

Direction: Dexter Fletcher
Country: UK/USA/Canada

Rocketman offers a trippy musical account of the early days of British pop singer/composer Elton John. It was passionately choreographed and flamboyantly directed from a script by Lee Hall (War Horse; Billy Elliot), becoming an agreeable surprise. Even more so, when we bear in mind that its director, Dexter Fletcher, was directly involved in Bohemian Rhapsody, where the life of Queen’s Freddie Mercury was not so fun to watch, revealing problems about historical accuracy and in its technical execution.

In the first scene, we see a wasted, emotionally devastated Elton John entering a group therapy session dressed in an exuberant winged costume to affirm: ‘my name is Elton Hercules John and I’m an alcoholic’. He also admits to have problems with drugs and anger management, but the film really never explores in that direction. Fletcher makes it fascinatingly canny with risk-taking scenes that simultaneously inform and entertain without resorting to any sort of cheap sentimentality or manipulation. In addition to that, he needed an amazing performance for the film to succeed and he gets it from Taron Egerton, who enlivened the character almost to perfection with his acting skills.

Sir John’s indelible songs were pretexts for unabashed choreographies and a small amount of uncontemplated surrealism, advantageously employed in key moments of the story. It was done smartly and briefly with no exaggeration. The period and milieu are also nicely depicted, while relationships with lyricist friend Bernie Taupin (Jamie Bell) and abusive music manager and lover John Reid (Richard Madden) were never insipid. However, some scenes depicting the interaction with his cold, indifferent father (Steven Mackintosh) could have been more diligent and, perhaps, less formal in order to not clash with the strategy adopted for the rest. Moreover, the anger management mentioned in the beginning of the film was a mirage, being completely wiped out from the script.

Pompous in the presentation, Rocketman is not perfect, but had enough nerve to show Elton John flying during a performance at Los Angeles’ venue The Troubadour. He didn’t need any plumed pair of wings for that.

Photograph (2019)

Direction: Ritesh Batra
Country: India

From the director of The Lunchbox, Photograph doesn't feel so distinguished as its predecessor. Indian director Ritesh Batra makes a demure tribute to love by leisurely depicting a romance that brings as much good intention as naivety to the screen.

Rafi (Nawazuddin Siddiqui - also starred in The Lunchbox) is a serene, if struggling, street photographer now living in a constant pressure after his grandmother (Farrukh Jaffar) has decided to find a woman for him to be married. While she sets out running the vivid streets of Mumbai in searching for a good match, Rafi becomes the talk of the town. Sort of embarrassed yet unwilling to do something he doesn’t want to, he asks a humble middle-class accounting student, Miloni (Sanya Malhotra), to lie to his grandmother while pretending to be his fiancé. The fact that Miloni isn’t happy with an arrangement made by her conservative parents to meet the son of some friends, who is departing to the US, made her take an attentive look at Rafi, understanding his reasons and tribulations. Against all odds, the fake couple actually falls in love, acknowledging that sacrifices are to be made in the interest of a happy future together.

The story was written by Batra in a thoughtful way but fails to succeed in many aspects, opting for gimmicky subtle procedures for tackling a typical love story. The director pushed aside any tear-jerking scenes, but perhaps he was too permissive in an unconscious way for the film’s own disadvantage. Even making us rise and shine with an impeccable smart conclusion, this wasn’t enough to make Photograph a special love story.

Our Time (2019)

Direction: Carlos Reygadas
Country: Mexico / other

The films of Mexican Carlos Reygadas are structured with enough existentialism and spiritual vision to present challenges to the viewer. I’m remembering how much Japón (2002), Post Tenebras Lux (2012), and especially Silent Light (2007), generated discussion, marking the international cinema with enduring long shots prone to emotionally intriguing reflection.

The director’s new work, Our Time, is a nearly 3-hour examination of a complex, undermined open marriage between Juan (played by Reygadas himself), an arrogant cattle rancher and poet, and Ester (Natalia Lopez, Reygadas’ real-life spouse), a free-spirited mother of three who is fed up with her obligation to report her secret encounters with Phil (Phil Burgers), an American horse trainer temporarily hired to work at the ranch, to her scrupulous husband. With the passage of time, the tension grows exponentially and mistrust envelops the couple's doomed relationship. The story is partially narrated by a kid’s voice and includes letter and e-mail readings as well as phone call conversations.

Squeezed in the middle of these lives marked by obsession, voyeurism, carnal desire, and ego, we have furious bull fights, which work as a metaphor for leadership and possession in the marital alliance but also as an exteriorization of all the tension accumulated throughout. Under a deceptively polished surface, there’s a lot of emotional fractures, whose delineation, despite valid, won’t appeal to everyone’s tastes.

Reygadas stumbles in this quiet yet powerfully acted tale of love, loyalty, and exasperation, where one pokes around vainly in search of something more than just the facts.

In Juan’s words: ‘love is resilient and imperfect’ and, in some way, that’s what a much less ambiguous Reygadas intends to substantiate here. However, he couldn’t handle this bull by the horns, stretching the time into an absurd extent in order to tell a story that never showed plenitude of heart.

Booksmart (2019)

Direction: Olivia Wilde
Country: USA

Teenage agitation and frantic ethos are back in this delicious coming-of-age comedy from actress Olivia Wilde, who excels in her directorial debut. Booksmart is the product of a jointly creative work authored by four female writers: Susanna Fogel, Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, and Katie Silberman. Unfolding at a hyperactive pace, this highly entertaining film also serves as a showcase for Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever’s acting capabilities.

After learning about their unpopularity among their school peers, two hugely smart graduating high school students and best friends, Molly (Feldstein) and Amy (Dever), resolve to demonstrate the world that they are not one-dimensional A+ people and that brains are just a little part of their tremendously interesting selves. Consequently, they will do the impossible to stand out at Nick’s end-of-the-year party, but before reaching there, bizarre occurrences make the night impudently eventful due to the company of the eccentric Jared (Skyler Gisondo) and the frenzied Gigi (Billie Lourd).

Expect a drug trip that ends up in obscene doll-related hallucinations, a first-time lesbian sex experience with disastrous results, a serious argument and subsequent poignant reconciliation, an emotional goodbye, and even a funny conversation promptly delivered in Chinese at their most convenience. Everything looks cute with the deft handling of script and camera by Ms. Wilde, whose directorial career starts auspiciously.

At once rebellious and charmer, Booksmart also displays strong technical aspects, including an effective soundtrack with an inclination for hip-hop. Actor/comedian Will Ferrell and director Adam McKay (Vice; The Big Short) were summoned as executive producers, while the casting by Allison Jones (Lady Bird) is brilliant. Without the hypocrisy of its genre-related competitors, this is a refreshing teen movie that bounces with energy and tangy dialogue.

Gloria Bell (2019)

Direction: Sebastian Lelio
Country: USA

Julianne Moore is Gloria Bell, an independent divorcée and mother of two who tries to fill a gap in her life with a caring man who could meet her expectations and tastes. As a dance lover, she refuses social isolation and keeps looking for the perfect match in clubs around L.A. at the sound of funk, pop, disco, and R&B hits from the 70s and 80s.

The apparently bashful Arnold (a convincing John Turturro) becomes a candidate of choice when things work out well between them after the first encounter. Recently divorced, he is trying to change his life, but admits having two adult daughters who completely rely on him financial-wise. However, this man reveals to be more complicated and pathetic than he demonstrated in the first instance. On one hand, he needs all the attention he can get, and on the other, he provides everything his daughters and ex-wife demand from him, even stressing and complaining about it all the time.

After an unexplained disappearance when at Gloria’s son’s birthday party, they break up, but days later she gives way to his charm and insistent phone calls, giving him one last chance to redeem himself. A trip to Vegas reaches a climax that, unfortunately, we had already seen before.

Reimagining his own 2013 film Gloria, whose story was set in Santiago and features Paulina Garcia in the leading role, Chilean director Sebastian Lelio (A Fantastic Woman) copies himself in style, designing a similar story to fit the American soil. In fact, the whole film is unsurprising and drags tediously into obvious conclusions. I mean, who needs an American Gloria Bell when we had the wonderful Chilean Gloria? And I say this with all the respect Ms. Moore’s work deserves.

The American adaptation lacks the real free spirit, magic narrative pulse, and radiance of the original, taking this problematic romance to a minor key and making us pay the price. Regardless of the great performances from Moore and Turturro, I would call Gloria with a Spanish accent.

Birds of Passage (2019)

Direction: Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego
Country: Colombia

Notable Colombian director Ciro Guerra, here teaming up with debutant Cristina Gallego, has carved his own style with stunning works that speak for themselves. Birds of Passage succeeds to the mesmerizing Oscar-nominated adventure that was Embrace of the Serpent in his short yet exceptional filmography. Even not as striking as the latter, this new film provides extraordinary moments of mature cinema.

Divided into five acts and inspired by real events, the film, written by Maria Camila Arias and Jacques Toulemonde, boasts an effective narrative delineated with refinement, integrity, and a cultivated cinematic sensibility that unfolds in a mixed style that incorporates the mysticism associated with the indigenous Wayuu clan traditions of the Guajira Peninsula in the northernmost part of Colombia and the violent, materialistic world of the noir gangster movies.

Rapayet (José Acosta) is not doing so well in his coffee trade, struggling financially to pay the heavy dowry asked by the family of his intended wife, Zaida (Natalia Reyes). The latter was conveniently prepared to embrace the role of a dedicated wife. Her mother, Ursula (Carmiña Martínez), the superstitious, ambitious and reasonably cautious matriarch who communicates with the spirits, taught her everything she must know.

Rapayet's solution to the problem consists in teaming up with the voracious Montcho (Jhon Narváez), a childhood friend from a different ethnicity, and sell marijuana to the Americans, a very lucrative business that will cast aside any economic difficulty. However, tragedy and war struck the indigenous family, firstly due to Montcho’s shameless criminal practices and obsession for power, and secondly, due to Leonidas (Greider Meza), Ursula’s vile and vicious younger son.

In addition to David Gallego’s delightful cinematography, which captures both luxurious and arid landscapes with the same exuberance, we have enthralling folk music connected to ancient traditions, dreams, allegories, and premonitions in a stylized, hybrid tale of power, love, vendetta, and honor. This is powerful cinema.

Little Woods (2019)

Direction: Nia DaCosta
Country: USA

Grounded, socially aware, and believable, Little Woods is the first directorial effort by New York-based writer/director Nia DaCosta, whose bleak yet stubbornly optimistic tale highly benefits with the lucid performances from Tessa Thompson and Lily James.

In the last eight days of her probation, Ollie (Thompson) is decided to do better than smuggling pills over the Canadian border. However, the economically fragile Little Woods in North Dakota is not a comfortable place to make a living. If everything pointed in the right direction, the death of her mother and the unexpected contact with her depressive and emotionally volatile sister Deb (James), makes her step on muddy territory again. Despite the opposite personalities and some antagonism that stems from the past, the sisters unite in a dramatic small-town thriller that rings true. In fact, and even depicting complicated situations, the plot line is solid and never derivative.

Sombre as it may be, this low-budget film centers on a character that never stops searching for solutions in an extremely adverse environment. DaCosta’s personal vision brings out shades of Kelly Reichardt and Debra Granik and refuses to exclude the possibility of dreaming, which is a positive factor. If you enjoy a tightly wrought story with clear-cut characters, then Little Woods is for you.

Styx (2019)

Direction: Wolfgang Fischer
Country: Germany / Austria

In Greek mythology, Styx is a deity and a river that forms the boundary between Earth and the Underworld. You won’t find a deity or a river in Austrian Wolfgang Fischer’s sophomore film, but the immense sea and an unforgettable, shocking discovery that will forever mark the life of an adventurous woman sailor.

The experienced, hands-on 40-year-old doctor Rike (Susanne Wolff) resolves to abandon the stress of emergency medical night shifts in Gibraltar to embark on a solo sailing trip to the small tropical island of Ascension. She learned about the place's artificial jungle from a book by Charles Darwin. Expecting to find some sort of paradise on Earth, it’s hell that appears in front of her, not due to a storm that after a certain time shook her yacht with violence, but when she faces the sad reality of a fishing boat overloaded with dehydrated, famished, and sick African refugees. Several attempts to ask for help were made via radio and all she got was a voice saying: “back up and don’t intervene”. That’s when Rike envisions a risky scheme to force the authorities to get involved and do their job.

The monstrosity of letting debilitated people dying in the sea is disgusting. This is just an episode amidst many that show the cruelty of the world we’re living in. Should some lives matter more than others?

Fischer puts you right in the middle of the action, infusing tension and anguish with a story that demonstrates the complacency of developed countries in the face of painful realities lived by human beings in other parts of the world.

The film has been compared to J.C. Chandor’s All is Lost, yet Rike felt powerless and helpless rather than really lost at sea and with her life in danger. The ending didn’t exceed expectations, but this was a piercingly realistic cinematic experience based on an outrageous true story.

Long Way Home / Temporada (2019)

Direction: André Novais Oliveira
Country: Brazil

Although unfurling slowly and feeling somewhat turgid in its behaviors, Long Way Home / Temporada, a project by André Novais Oliveira, offers warm, friendly vibes along the way that might keep you connected. One of the strongest aspects of the film is the unexpectedness of a plot bolstered with credible performances from Grace Passô and debutant Russo Apr.

At the center of the tale is Juliana (Passô), a married woman who leaves her small-scale Brazilian hometown, Itaúnas, to embrace the bigger metropolitan town of Contagem, where she was called for a coveted yet poorly paid governmental job within the public-health department. She becomes a fighter in the arduous endemic control of the Dengue mosquito. Her husband is supposed to join her after she settles down but vanishes without a trace.

Meanwhile, Juliana befriends her immediate superior Russão (Apr), a nice, funny guy who plans to open a barber shop and, against all the expectations, finds out he is a father.

Every co-worker has a story and a cross to bear, but they find support in one another with an empathic understanding and abundant compassion. After all, Juliana is forced to a fresh start. With her arms wide open, she embraces a new life where everything is unfamiliar and uncertain. Yet, there’s always something to discover in each and every experience.

Disillusion, frustration, and affliction counterbalance friendship, self-discovery, and hope. Oliveira’s direction is virtuous and his vision substantiates humanity. Still, he could have included the violence theme, a major problem in Brazil, in order to make this snapshot even more authentic. Although I didn’t get completely fulfilled in the end, the film has quite a few fascinating moments and is worth seeing.