Collective (2020)

Direction: Alexander Nanau
Country: Romania

This elucidative Romanian documentary directed by Alexander Nanau (Toto and his Sisters) follows a tenacious investigation led by Gazzete’s journalist Catalin Tolontan who, alongside a small team, disclosed governmental and corporate corruption related to the rotten Romanian health care system. 

People moderately injured by a fire in the Bucharest night club Colectiv succumb due to bacteria in a hospital with improper disinfection policies. 

The findings led to massive public protests and then to the resignation of the Minister of Health, prompting the new one, Vlad Voiculescu, to cooperate with the journalists and take unprecedented measures. Corrupt hospital managers and politicians  were identified together with negligent medical staffs. Still, in the end, we are consumed by the frustration that arises from unpunished bribes and a fraudulent, dysfunctional Romanian state.

Solidly structured and incisive in its observations, the film never leaves you in doubt, showing that the truth is way too hard to digest. What we see here is not pretty - it’s simultaneously scary and infuriating to realize that people who are paid to guarantee a proper functionality of a health system don’t give a damn if you live or die. Collective leaves us speechless, but, fortunately, honest journalism still exists.

A Sun (2020)

Direction: Chung Mong-hong
Country: Taiwan

A Sun is a crime-infused Taiwanese drama film directed by Chung Mong-hong (The Fourth Portrait; Soul), who co-wrote it with screenwriter and novelist Chang Yao-sheng. The excellent performances could have hurled the film into stardom by themselves if the overdramatic score by Lin Sheng-xiang didn’t attempt to increase the emotional toll in each and every key scene. Thus, in my view, the film would have worked better if the constantly bitter tones were cooked raw. Despite this quibble, the well-written plot didn’t left me indifferent.

We follow the tortuous path of A-Ho (Wu Chien-ho), whose troublesome teenage years in Taipei led him to a juvenile correction facility. While doing time, he learns that his 15-year old girlfriend is pregnant and that his brilliant and introspective older brother, A-Hao (Greg Hsu), has committed suicide. Their father (Chen Yi-wen), a peculiar driving instructor, deliberately refused to fight for A-Ho in court, on a case where the hand of a young man was chopped and thrown into a boiling soup by his son's friend Radish (Liu Kuan-ting). Misfortunes for this family are far from over, especially when the latter is released from prison.

This is a tale of tragedy, reconciliation and crime punctuated with effective comedic touches, becoming an exposé of parental fault, disintegration and collapse. This atmospheric conundrum among this family of four, shapes into whether sensitive or violent behaviors in a credible script wrapped in emotional complexity. Peace is ultimately found but at a high cost.

Mong-hong also takes charge of the cinematography, taking an impressive stance on the visuals, but he could have taken A Sun to another realm by simplifying a few aspects.

The Woman in the Window (2021)

Direction: Joe Wright
Country: USA

The elegant filmmaking style of Joe Wright, the British director of modern classics such as Pride & Prejudice (2005), Atonement (2007) and Darkest Hour (2017), becomes powerless in face of the tremendous destabilized screenplay of The Woman in the Window, an Hitchcockian psychological thriller that took its influence too far. Tracy Letts, who also stars, adapted A.J. Finn’s bestselling novel of the same name, but not even a great cast fronted by Amy Adams and including Gary Oldman, Fred Hechinger, Julianne Moore, Wyatt Russell and Jennifer Jason Leigh, was capable to make it convincing or stimulating.

Anne Fox (Adams) is an agoraphobic child psychiatrist living in Manhattan, New York. She loves to snoop on her neighbors. Recently separated from her husband, who took their daughter with him, Anne immerses herself in this noxious daily routine, which also includes alcohol and drug intake as well as some minimal interaction with her tenant, David (Russell), a sinister singer/songwriter turned handyman. When the Russells move into an apartment she owns across the street, she gets to know more about them - the controlling and temperamental Allistair (Oldman), his nosy and fragile wife Jane (Moore), and their sensitive 15-year-old son, Ethan (Hechinger). One day, from her window, she witnesses a murder in their house.

In addition to a synthetic central character, the weak intrigue and rigid dynamics place the film between a poorly investigative case and a phony state of paranoia. The flaws are significative throughout, ultimately leading to a more ridiculous than revelatory closure. I expected much more from Wright than just craftsmanship behind the camera. This is stale when it should be tight.

White On White (2021)

Direction: Théo Court
Country: Spain

White on White, the sophomore feature from Spanish-born director of Chilean heritage Théo Court, can be described as a neo-western with glowing images but a grim soul. As a strange melancholy surrounds us through impressionistic well-lit interiors and the now snowy, now arid landscape of Tierra Del Fuego, we are drawn into a vortex of darkness whose epicenter is a mysterious, wealthy and unseeable landowner called Mr. Porter. The latter hires a meticulous photographer, Pedro (Alfredo Castro), to take pictures of his future wife, Sara (Esther Vega Perez), who is still a child. She fascinates Pedro in an artistic way (I want to believe) but his intentions are taken as an offense after the first session. The place has limited accessibility and the atmosphere ranges from gloomy to hostile.

With the wedding postponed, Pedro realizes how sad is the life of the ones inhabiting the propriety, where most of them drink to overcome the solitude. The men not only take pleasure in killing the Selk’nam, an indigenous people of the Patagonia region, but also are rewarded for that. Pedro feels trapped and forced to participate in these manhunts, even if he refuses to kill.

To better understand the film’s mood you can consider a crossing between Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness and Antonio di Benedetto’s Zama. There’s an inescapable sense of trauma and perversion throughout, with a finale that lifts the veil on the ignominious complicity of Pedro, who, betraying his principles, seems to opt for immoral work instead of going crazy. 

The apt performance by Castro (who earned accolades in Pablo Larrain’s Tony Manero, Post Mortem and The Club) and the breathtaking cinematography by José Ángel Alayón help us conquer the languorous pace of the story.

Identifying Features (2021)

Direction: Fernanda Valadez
Country: Mexico

In Fernanda Valadez’s heartbreaking debut feature, Identifying Features, a 48-year-old woman called Magdalena (Mercedes Hernández) sets off to the border between Mexico and the US in a desperate attempt to track down her missing son, Jesús (Juan Jesús Varela). During the perilous route that takes her from Guanajuato to a forbidden rural zone called ‘La Fragua’, she comes across with another woman in the same situation and a deported young man, Miguel (David Illescas), who returns to his village to see his mother. Then she visits an elderly Indian Mexican, a survivor of a bus assault, who might know what happened to her son.

Sorely meditative and minimally composed, the film carries an enormous emotional weight in each frame. The spiky script, co-written by Valadez and Astrid Rondero (they also edited and produced), steadily cranks up its social and emotional charge, at the same time that, even without providing any answer, makes us inquire about Mexico’s unremitting violence. Hernández shines particularly convincing as the unsettling scenes capture the tormenting reality of Mexico’s several degrees of inhumanity.

Identifying Features is a harrowing tale of loss, anguish and disenchantment whose brutally cold conclusions left me stunned.

The Man Who Sold His Skin (2021)

Direction: Kaouther Ben Hania
Country: Tunisia

For her second fictional feature film, Tunisian writer-director Kaouther Ben Hania sought inspiration in the Belgian contemporary artist Wim Delvoye's living work Tim (2006). She tells the story of Sam Ali (Yahya Mahayni), a Syrian refugee who was forced to flee his tumultuous country to Lebanon, where he was literally turned into a flesh-and-blood piece of art by the provocative Belgian artist Jeffrey Godefroi (Koen De Bouw). The latter’s concept consists in tattooing a Schengen visa on Sam’s back, which, ironically, allows him to travel to Europe, not as a human being but as a work of art. 

Unwillingly, Sam left his sweetheart, Abeer (Dea Liane), at the mercy of Ziad (Saad Lostan), a smug politician who works for the Syrian embassy in Belgium. Years later, they have a chance to meet again in Brussels.

The duality achieved between being a famished refugee and an exploitative object of art is thoughtful and works well until we reach the film's midpoint. At that stage, Hania makes this crushing love story nosedive into fabricated banality, also spoiling the potential of the romance. It really seems that the finale was cooked up under pressure after an ambitious start. 

As my interest kept declining, The Man Who Sold His Skin showed to have a lot more in mind than what it could handle. This once promising satire, made imperfect by a weak twist, misses the killing blow.

Two of Us (2021)

Direction: Filippo Meneghetti
Country: France

Construed as a bittersweet hymn of love, Two of Us is an auspicious debut for Filippo Meneghetti, an Italian-born director based in France, whose work should get him a zealous set of admirers. Crafted with strong visuals, narrative focus and aching intimacy, the film chronicles  the story of two women in their sixties - Madeleine Girard (Martine Chevallier) and Nina Dorn (Barbara Sukowa) - who have been neighbors and secret lovers for decades. The former is a widow, a mother of two and grandmother who makes arrangements with the latter, a former tour guide from Berlin, to sell their apartments and move to Italy.

If the plan suddenly got to an impasse due to Madeleine’s children - the caring Anne (Léa Drucker) and the insensitive Fred (Jérôme Varanfrain) - then it became practically ruined after a sad incident that forces both women to fight hard to stay together. 

The film’s extraordinary qualities - including a ferocious performance by Sukowa - outweighs any quibbles in a story that fluidly toggles affection and tension. There’s no artsy nonsense here nor dull moments, but rather an afflictive desperation and yearning that rings true. The instinctual need for love we see here is extremely powerful, with Meneghetti guiding the two lead actresses with firm hand as well as working all the environment that surrounds them to attain the credibility that the story he co-wrote with Malysone Bovorasmy, deserves.

Wrath of Man (2021)

Direction: Guy Ritchie
Country: USA / UK

Wrath of Man, Guy Ritchie’s disappointing remake of the French heist film Le Convoyeur (2004), stars the British actor Jason Statham as a charmless avenger, in what is his fourth collaboration with the director after Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels in 1998, Snatch in 2000, and Revolver in 2005.

The plot focuses on a mysterious man, Patrick “H” Hill (Statham), who starts to work for an L.A. armored truck company that transports millions in cash every week. The cash trucks are frequently targeted by the organized crime, but H not only demonstrates advanced combat skills when leading with the robbers but also drives them off with his presence. While promptly earning the respect of his colleagues and superiors, this man reveals other intentions than just doing his regular job.

It’s a bit of dark fun that we get before the film gets stuck in by-the-books action scenes with plenty of violence and machine gun pyrotechnics. Everything is set in autopilot mode and the menacing score by Christopher Benstead - who worked with Ritchie in The Gentlemen - is a constant presence, even in the scenes where it wasn't needed.

It’s all bloated spectacle in the end, a long and boring trail of deaths presented with a deceptive slickness, where Statham doesn’t even bother to bring a sense of grief to his miserable existence. Ritchie has enlisted the actor once again for his upcoming film, a spy thriller involving the MI6 and the CIA. I hope he can find different strategies to get better results.

You Will Die at Twenty (2021)

Direction: Amjad Abu Alala
Country: Sudan

This revelatory Sudanese drama film directed and co-written by the debutant Amjad Abu Alala tells the lugubrious story of Muzamil (Mustafa Shehata), whose life is negatively affected when a holy prophet passes the message that he will die at the age 20. 

Whereas his father (Talal Afifi), too disturbed by the curse, decides to leave the family and go abroad, his mother, Sakina (Islam Mubarak), embraces sadness and premature mourning while keeping her son at home. Consequently, the boy is deprived from having a proper education and a healthy social life. Still, whenever there’s an opportunity, Muzamil goes out, just to be bullied by the other boys who call him ‘the son of death’. This dark prospect doesn’t refrain Naiema (Bonna Khalid), his only childhood friend, from showing her love for him years later. However, he’s too afraid to take any step toward her, unable to break free from impairing superstitious creeds and strict religious procedures. 

As a smart boy who, at 19, memorized the Quran in two reading styles, he begins to see a new reality due to the influence of Sulaiman (Mahmoud Elsarraj), a free-minded man with a passion for cinema and a bad reputation among the villagers.

Shot with an eye for cultural particularities and holding on to a competently structured storytelling, this fable of death exposes the current problems - many in the guise of tradition - of countries marked by long-lasting dictatorships and inflexible visions. It also serves as a metaphor for our world today, where ridiculous and unsupported beliefs are taken to extremes.

Both the narrative quality and stylistic grounds suggest a crossing between Youssef Chahine and Satyajit Ray, in a sad film dedicated to the victims of the Sudanese Revolution.

Sator (2021)

Direction: Jordan Graham
Country: USA

Sator is an art-house horror movie that impressed me more with its imagery than with its story. Written and directed by Jordan Graham, who sought inspiration in his own great-grandmother experiences, the film follows Adam (Gabriel Nicholson), a tortured man who lives in a cabin in a secluded forest where a supernatural entity - a demon called Sator - claims all members of his family as he stalks his lineage for centuries. His senile grandmother, Nani (remarkable first appearance on the screen by June Peterson), a practitioner of automatic writing, is the one who informs him about the knowledgeable creature that can’t be seen in the dark and talks in her head. While the alert Adam seems disturbed with the fact, his siblings, Pete (Michael Daniel) and Deborah (Aurora Lowe), don’t show any signs of weakness. 

Posing as an enigmatic, folklore-infused chimera, Sator is not a typical scarer as it detaches from all those stereotyped elements such as punctual startles, sudden loud noises, creepy visuals and foreboding score. Instead, Graham frames his shots with two different techniques (B&W 4:3 and Color 16:9), employs occasionally ruminative soundscapes and routine Bible passages that come from a radio, and throws in Rachmaninoff’s “Concerto no. 2” in the most sinister moments of the film. Yes, I thought the grandmother was far more bone-chilling than Sator itself. 

Even so, the slow-moving passages and dull dialogue make the film drag all along, while the outcome never matches the promises made in the first segment of the story. This self-reverential exercise drowns in a deep melancholy and gets lost in the vision of bovine-like skulls risen from the dead.

Crock of Gold: a Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan (2020)

Direction: Julien Temple
Country: UK

I was never a big fan of The Pogues, but I remember to have read interesting stories about its frontman, the rebellious Irish punk Shane MacGowan, who is the subject of this engrossing documentary directed by the British director Julien Temple (The Filth and the Fury, 2000; London: the Modern Babylon, 2012). 

The title of the film partly stems from the novel by the Irish writer James Stephens, which already had lent its name to the sophomore album of MacGowan’s post-Pogues band, The Popes, while the few rounds certainly takes my mind to his long-lasting alcohol addiction. The singer/songwriter talks about his childhood, spent at a farmhouse in Tipperary, Ireland, where he started to drink at the age six. He also weighs in on the IRA and the Irish War of Independence, his nervous breakdowns, acid trips, heroin and alcohol dependency, lost and regain of faith, his love/hate relationship with England, and many more episodes that made his life so singular.

Expertly structured, the film intertwines conversational segments between MacGowan and the former Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams as well as the actor Johnny Depp, terrific animation sequences by the legendary illustrator Ralph Steadman, unseen archive footage from The Pogues in concert, and statements of elucidation by Shane’s sister, Siobhan.

The resulting documentary is a sincere, funny look at the wild life of a poet/musician, who, emerging here as a survivor of all types of excesses (even musical), is brutally honest when dealing with the life he chose and the circumstances that made him who he is. By the way, MacGowan will also be remembered for his oddly contagious laugh.

The Sleepwalkers (2020)

Direction: Paula Hernandez
Country: Argentina

A couple in crisis, Luisa (Érica Rivas) and Emilio (Luis Ziembrowski), alongside their 14-year-old daughter, Ana (Ornella D'Elía), gather with the rest of the family at the country house of the dominant matriarch, Memé (Marilú Marini). It's New Year’s Eve in Argentina and the normal tensions and conflicts between adults within a family feel insignificant here, as a more complex tragedy takes place, leaving irreversible emotional marks.

Shot with a refined taste and hanging on subtle details to illustrate what’s with each character, Paula Hernandez’s The Sleepwalkers succeeds in piling up small doses of tension that end up bursting into an agonizing climax.

An extremely talented cast makes everything in the flesh, but it would be unfair not to stress the magnificent performances of Rivas and D’Elía, who ensure the credibility of a mother-daughter relationship.

Despite all its strengths as a sobering, wrenching and well-acted drama, The Sleepwalkers faces some limitations, the biggest of them being the predictability of the story. The way Hernandez mounted the script makes no room for surprises, yet, the film still poses interesting questions about responsibility. Is there anything that could have been done to avoid such an atrocious outcome of this Argentinian family reunion?

The Courier (2021)

Direction: Dominic Cooke
Country: UK

I firmly believe that the life of British engineer and businessman Greville Wynne was far more interesting than this political thriller that tells his story. The Courier is a weak account of his involvement with the MI-6 and the warm relationship forged with the Soviet agent Oleg Penkovsky during the Cold War. Both played an important role in the prevention of a nuclear war as well as defusing the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.

The film, written by Tom O’Connor and directed by Dominic Cooke, stars Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game) as the British courier and Merab Ninidze (My Happy Family) as the Soviet informer. The atmosphere within the family is also addressed here as Wynne’s wife, Sheila (Jessie Buckley), becomes suspicious about her husband having a lover due to the numerous times he's absent in Moscow.

Although boasting a hyper-focused camera work that is pretty effective (the cinematographer is Sean Bobbitt, whose observant lens has been crucial in the works of director Steve McQueen), the film struggles to maintain minimally acceptable dynamics. The cold tone adopted by Cooke makes it stagger toward a half-baked climax, leading to the lamentable conclusion that he’s more interested in informing the audience than really entertaining it.

Honestly, the whole film feels like there’s something off, and because Cooke didn’t invest in thrills and Cumberbatch was not so convincing, the result is a vacuous, low-energy spy thriller that made me exhaustively insensitive.

Nobody (2021)

Direction: Ilya Naishuller
Country: USA

Nobody is a kinetic, action-packed romp smeared with dark comedic touches that create that mood that feels just right. It’s the first directorial effort by Russian Ilya Naishuller, who worked from a familiar yet smart script by Derek Kolstad, the creative brain behind the John Wick franchise.

Perpetually violent, the film follows Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk of Breaking Bad series and Alexander Payne’s Nebraska), a seemingly quiet family man with a mysterious past who gradually became bored, cold and irritated throughout the years. After an armed couple breaks into his house, he decides to go after them, but not before realizing that his daughter’s kitty-cat bracelet is missing. Somehow, this brings a new excitement to his monotonous life, and he even reconnects with his wife, Becca (Connie Nielsen). 

In his fury, he ends up messing with the Russian mob while helping a young woman in distress, becoming the target of Yulian Kuznetsov (Aleksey Serebryakov), a beast of a sociopath and Obshak guardian.

Besides the suitable multi-genre retro soundtrack and the expeditious editing by the team Evan Schiff and William Yeh, the film ramps up with Odenkirk’s breathtaking performance. 

Sometimes, Naishuller toys with cliché and embraces the ridicule, taking a good laugh whenever they occur. And those include most of the scenes involving Hutch’s father, David (remember Christopher Lloyd? Back to the Future’s Dr. Emmet Brown), a former FBI agent with a disturbing craving for guns (where did we see this before?).

Nobody is nothing major, but there’s enough funny and electrifying moments laced through the uneven plot sequences to make us engaged.

Manor House (2021)

Direction: Cristi Puiu
Country: Romania / other

Cristi Puiu is a Romanian director credited with accomplished films such as The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005), Aurora (2010) and Sieranevada (2016). Manor House, his sixth feature, however, is an interminable philosophical debate set in the 19th-century Transylvania that doesn’t take us anywhere beyond aristocratic pretentiousness. 

The film, based on a text by Russian philosopher Vladimir Salovyov, denotes a remarkable cinematography by Tudor Vladimir Panduru (My Happy Family; Graduation) and an impeccable, evocative mise en scène that ceases to create an impact as the tedium of the conversation gradually installs.

This plot-less exercise centers on a Christmas gathering hosted by Nikolai (Frédéric Schulz-Richard), an aristocrat landowner, who seems to enjoy the company of his four argumentative guests - the Franco-Russian politician Edouard (Ugo Broussot), the ironic middle-aged Madeleine (Agathe Bosch), the young pious Olga (Marina Palii), and Ingrida (Diana Sakalauskaité), the wife of a Russian general. In their complex examinations, the group addresses war and peace, God and the antichrist, death and sins, Russia and Europe, reason and conscience, politeness and human progress. Puiu also gives us a quick glimpse of the servants’ work and behavior around the house, which is the most interesting part of the film. 

These erudite discussions, sometimes recalling the elegant formalism of Manoel de Oliveira, are captured by excessively long takes where the actors, with more or less theatrical demeanor, vomit their thoughts with no interruption or restraint. Can you imagine a film that you have to wait an entire hour for something to happen - an abrupt faint, in the case - and absolutely nothing comes from that? Puiu was never more obstinate and futile than in Manor House.

To the Ends of the Earth (2020)

Direction: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Country: Uzbekistan / Japan / other

Written and directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Cure; Tokyo Sonata), To the Ends of The Earth follows Yoko (former J-pop idol Atsuko Maeda), the dissatisfied host of a Japanese travel TV show who dreams of being a singer. Arrived in Uzbekistan to shoot another installment of the series, Yoko only takes pleasure in exploring the capital, Tashkent, by herself. The small crew that flew with her from Japan is not particularly amusing, especially the inconsiderate director, Yoshioka (Shota Sometani); and only a hired local translator, Temur (Adiz Rajabov), sparks off some genuine empathy.

During her staying, Yoko gets involved in many episodes - she's blamed for the non-appearance of a mythical Uzbek fish, forced to eat uncooked rice in a local eatery and pretend it’s delicious, rides multiple times in a giddying pendulum ride, pities a goat in captivity and sets it free (an unconscious projection of her own situation), gets lost in the city at night, visits the beautiful Navoi Theater by chance, and ends up being chased by the police for a frivolous incident. 

This culture-clash drama is rooted in a painful realism but occasionally slips into cloud-land through fabricated musical moments. Although it may get you hooked in its loose narrative sphere and gentle pace, some episodes are peripheral, with Kurosawa showing some indecision about if he wants to explore the austerely dramatic side of a phony travelogue or extract a breezy jocularity from certain situations.

Expect a strong central performance by Maeda, whose character completely transfigures while working in front of a camera, and an interesting shift into the minor key from Kurosawa, who typically embraces a tension-filled style.

Shiva Baby (2021)

Direction: Emma Seligman
Country: USA 

Emma Seligman’s debut feature, Shiva Baby, is a witty comedy expanded from her 2018 short film of the same name, which, despite not entirely new in form and circumstance, still works out pretty well. The writing by the Canadian director is self-aware, while the impressive performance by the young Rachel Sennott in the leading role might open some doors to a promising career. The latter, strongly flanked by a competent supporting cast, is Danielle, a Jewish college senior who goes to a shiva with her pestering parents, Debbie (Polly Draper) and Joel (Fred Melamed), just to find out that her sugar daddy, Max (Danny Deferrari), as well as her self-reliant ex-girlfriend, Maya (Molly Gordon), are also attending.

Personal discomposure, family judgment, emotional consternation, jealousy and petty retaliation are some strong aspects to come up from a feverish day in the life of the messy Danielle. 

Whereas the filmmaking shows some interesting details - I’m remembering a few closeups of grotesque faces during a moment of emotional unbalance - the plot tackles the subject to the point of cringe-worthy. It’s a moderately diverting film with plenty of awkwardness and a gossipy tone that can be occasionally teasing as well.

Atlantis (2021)

Direction: Valentyn Vasyanovych
Country: Ukraine

Atlantis, a product of the creative mind of writer/director/producer/editor/cinematographer Valentyn Vasyanovych, opens with a bird's-eye shot filtered with a thermography effect of a man being killed by three others and buried in a hole they previously dug. This incident happened somewhere within a delimited area in Ukraine that, in 2025, is considered unfit for humans, and dangerous due to water and soil contamination as well as multiple mines spread through former battlegrounds between Ukrainians and Soviets. 

Sergyi (Andriy Rymaruk), a veteran soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, starts to find some peace under the grey skies of that same perimeter, right after the smelting plant where he was employed closes down. Although there’s not much to look at or do there, he volunteers in a program, whose goal is to exhume the bodies of war victims. Yet, the true reason for his rehabilitation isn’t the task itself, but Katya (Liudmyla Bileka), a woman with whom he dreams to live a better life.

At a first glance, this slow-burning indie might be referred to as a contemplation of the wrecked, but the gloomy inertness that haunts and afflicts us for most of its duration becomes ultimately winning. The low dynamics give the story an opaque narrative thread that becomes clearer as the clock keeps ticking, and the film shifts gears from an intriguingly morbid desolation (with scenes involving death, suicide and destructive anger) to a warm, hopeful love story. 

With both the camera work and the atmosphere recalling the works of Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Andrei Tarkovsky, Atlantis is a rough film to sit through, but those who really pay attention to its existentialist musings will be rewarded.

Quo Vadis Aida? (2021)

Direction: Jasmila Zbanic
Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina

Jasmila Zbanic’s Quo Vadis, Aida? is an enthralling, terrifying look at the barbarian 1995 genocide of Srebenica, when the Bosnian Serb Army killed 8,372 innocent Bosnian muslims during the Bosnian War. Rather than a generic account of the events, the film centers on the personal experience of the wife, mother, teacher and UN translator Aida Selmanagic (what a ferocious performance by Jasna Djuricic!), who fights like a true lioness in a desperate attempt to save her family. Although the film has been inspired by true events, its central character was fictionalized.

The treacherous General Ratko Mladic (Boris Isakovic), supreme commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, negotiates with the leader of the blue helmets, Major Franken (Raymond Thiry), who, despite the multiple recent attacks, keeps declaring the besieged enclave of Srebenica as a safe area. 

As the tension escalates, the UN camp, located in the outskirts of the city, becomes the only 'untouchable' place, and it's where 25000 unarmed Bosnians seek shelter as they fear for their lives. Nonetheless, the ominous feeling that a catastrophe is near seems to make both UN soldiers and civilians restless. 

The film, impeccably edited by Jaroslaw Kaminski (he worked with Pawlikowski in Ida and Cold War), unfolds as an effective nightmare that is suitably appalling in its historical context and extremely heartbreaking in terms of the family perspective. 

Sarajevo-born Zbanic, who is best known for the Berlin-winner drama film Grbavica (2006), has here her best film to date; an unforgettable experience capped off by an acerbic finale, and whose unflagging edginess and breathtaking stride will keep you petrified at all times.

Sun Children (2021)

Direction: Majid Majidi
Country: Iran

Majid Majidi, a director of righteous social conviction, returns to his effective screen formula to denounce the struggles of children in contemporary Iran. His latest drama film, Sun Children, is dedicated to the 150 million children forced to illegal labor in order to survive, whether because of some misfortune in life or to comply with the wish of their irresponsible parents. 

The story he wrote with Nima Javidi centers on Ali Zamani (newcomer Rouhollah Zamani), a 12-year-old street-wise who works in a garage since a car accident sent his mother to a public hospital. His boss is a local gangster, Hashem (Ali Nassirian), who assigns him with a complex mission: to find a treasure buried under the town's cemetery. The underground tunnel that leads there has its entrance at the Sun School, located next to it, where Ali and his three companions will have to enroll to gain access.

The charitable yet bankrupted school happens to be more like a blessing than a burden, filled with 280 rebellious yet inseparable street kids in need of care, and fronted by a sympathetic principal (Ali Ghabeshi) who always tries to understand first before educate them accordingly. 

This sad song abounds with sweat and frustration, and its energy is unfluctuating throughout, even at those times when a circumstantial emotional manipulation tries to impose, fortunately, with no major consequences. In fact, the film is ultimately hopeless but never bleak, taking a realistic look at one of the most serious issues in the Iranian society. And speaking of issues, in a parallel incident, the police is not spared for its excess of zeal and lack of tact.

Sun Children might not be among Majidi's best works such as Children of Heaven (1997), The Color of Paradise (1999) and The Song of Sparrows (2008), but its visual acuteness together with the powerful message makes it a ride bound to be taken seriously.