In The Heights (2021)

Direction: Jon M.Chu
Country: USA

This supposedly hip musical romance directed by Jon M.Chu (Crazy Rich Asians, 2018) is an adaptation of the Tony-winning musical of the same name by Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton, 2020), who produces and has a cameo as the piragua guy, and Quiara Alegría Hudes, who wrote the screenplay. The film intends to be a hymn of respect and praise for the Latino community living in New York. Even though it delivers the goods in terms of giving us the idea of the legacy, patience, faith, dreams and diversity of the people living in the Manhattan’s neighborhood of Washington Heights, it didn’t convince me with its laborious choreography, histrionic overjoy, and thickly sugarcoated episodes aligned at the sound of Latin, hip-hop, R&B and pop music (all music and lyrics written by Miranda). Even the dramatic parts were too syrupy for may taste.

The story follows the twenty-something bodega owner, Usnavi (Anthony Ramos) - named after the US Navy - whose dream is to go back to his native Dominican Republic. When he finally had everything set up to give that step, he meets Vanessa (Melissa Barrera), a stylist-wannabe who works in a beauty salon and becomes the woman of his dreams. A parallel romance occurs between Nina (Leslie Grace), a victim of discrimination who dropped college, and Benny (Corey Hawkins), who works for her supportive father (Jimmy Smits).

In the Heights feels hysterically lively but provides less funny moments than expected, playing more crowd-pleasing than magical. On top of this, I found the musical scenes a bit tiresome and showy.

Paper Spiders (2021)

Direction: Inon Shampanier
Country: USA

Lili Taylor’s flawless performance is perhaps the major reason why you should see Paper Spiders, a disenchanted family drama co-written and directed by Inon Shampanier. 

Taylor is Dawn, a recent widow whose anxiety ramps up when confronted with the fact that her only daughter, Melanie (Stefania LaVie Owen), is about to move away for college. The idea of living completely alone is already painful, but this matter gets an unthinkable proportion since Dawn has been showing signs of persecutory delusional disorder. She obsesses daily with a neighbor who, undeservedly, receives a temporary restraining order against him. In addition to this challenge, Melanie has another complicated situation to deal with: an unreliable boyfriend with a drinking problem.

Although there are individual scenes of powerful acting, the narrative’s pulse is pretty conventional, the editing is faltering as a few segments feel either unnecessary or underdeveloped, and the ending was too neatly wrapped to convince. Disillusion and embarrassment comes from every side in repetitive waves.

Paper Spiders rubs the mainstream melodrama, escaping its own grimness through hope while operating solely on a restrained emotional level. Shampanier’s ambitious project was partially saved by the two leads, who do all the heavy lifting.

Cruella (2021)

Direction: Craig Gillespie
Country: UK

Ok, this Walt Disney’s punk-ish Cruella, masterfully handled by the I Tonya’s director Craig Gillespie, proved to be more satisfying than I had anticipated, filling the screen with the fashion wrangle and powerful synergy between Emma Stone, who fits perfectly in the role of the title character (born from the pen of Dodie Smith), and Emma Thompson, already a staple in Disney’s films, as the wicked Baroness who doesn’t want to let go of her empire.

In this revenge tale, which serves as a prequel of 101 Dalmatians, the sumptuous mise-en-scène can’t divorce the luxurious costume design for a visually exuberant experience, and the film rocks with an unfaltering rhythm that is perhaps over enriched in terms of soundtrack, which is great in any case (Supertramp, The Doors, The Clash, Blondie, and many more).

The screenplay by Dana Fox (Isn’t It Romantic?) and Tony McNamara (The Favourite) brings out some nice twists carried out with a fearlessly inventive spirit and artistic personality. It was made clear that while Cruella has things done, Estella, an orphan swindler who dreams to become a fashion designer, doesn’t.

Although with the computer-generated images falling into occasional excesses, Gillespie succeeded in turning this film into a wonderful entertainment-escape, the most fun installment in the franchise.

The Killing Of Two Lovers (2021)

Direction: Robert Machoian
Country: USA

In this rustic, small-town family drama written and directed by Robert Machoian (God Bless the Child), a father of four struggles with a nebulous separation motivated by a progressively crumbling relationship. The couple still love each other but agreed on seeing other people during this trial period. 

Clayne Crawford delivers a raging performance as David, an angsty but well-meaning man who, encouraged by his disconsolate teen daughter to fight for the family, is taken by surprise by a series of unexpected events. He moved into his sick father’s house but still goes on sporadic dates with his wife, Nikki (Sepideh Moafi). However, Nikki’s teasing new boyfriend, Derek (Chris Coy), is decided to claim a space for himself that David can’t concede. 

Despite the compact 85 minutes, I found that some scenes with the kids could have been trimmed with no loss of clarity in the idea, while, on the other hand, some characters could have been further developed. Yet, the surprising factor does magic in The Killing of Two Lovers, an atmospheric effort forged with an intensity that oscillates between slow-burning and furious. It was magnificently shot with a square-shaped 4:3 aspect ratio, while the adroit composition of each frame was carefully planned. Another aspect that stands out is Peter Albrechtsen’s sound design. 

Overall, it’s a potent snapshot of a marriage in one of its most emotionally conflicting stages. 

The Real Thing (2021)

Direction: Koji Fukada
Country: Japan

This prosaic Japanese rom-com directed by Koji Fukada and adapted from a comic book by Mochiru Hoshisato is a four-hour soap opera that, in the end, showed to have more limitations than qualities. Teaming up with Shintaro Mitani in the script, the Tokyo-born director somehow brings to mind Truffaut’s fictional character Antoine Doinel as his lens focuses on Tsuji (Win Morisaki), a flirtatious young employee of a toys-and-fireworks company. Bored with life, the latter maintains two simultaneous relationships with female co-workers, Ms. Hosokawa (Kei Ishibashi) and Minako (Akari Fukunaga), and even promises to marry them. However, after saving the life of Ukiyo (Kaho Tsuchimura), a secretive woman with an erratic behavior and suspicious connections, he starts to obsess with her and his life is turned into hell.

Fukada tries a new angle but doesn’t reinvent the formula, stretching the plot of a volatile tale that plays as a tiresome game of seduction, lies and fragility. The filmmaker, most known for his 2016 Cannes-awarded drama film Harmonium, arranges everything with plenty of betrayals and reconciliations, jealousy and retaliation, dreams and disappointment, while the chain of characters - fluctuating between allies and enemies that whether support or depend on each other - is uninteresting in its essence. 

Even the final twist feels calculated and overcooked, making The Real Thing a frivolous, wishy-washy cinematic experience.

Sweet Thing (2021)

Direction: Alexandre Rockwell
Country: USA

Although displaying some plot choices near the finale that could have been better worked out, Sweet Thing, the 11th feature from Boston filmmaker Alexandre Rockwell (In The Soup; Little Feet), flies more than it fails, giving you solid reasons to see it; namely, a strong narrative construction supported by chiaroscuro black-and-white images with some occasional bursting of color (portraying happier times), nearly faultless acting, a gorgeously retro soundtrack (with Van Morrison at the helm) that always feels right, and an emotional significance that invites us to reflect about adults unequipped with what is needed to take care of their kids, forcing them into improper environments and go-nowhere existences.

Just like in Little Feet (2013), the director works with his two children - Lana Rockwell is Billie and Nico Rockwell is Nico, 15 and 11, respectively. They are siblings living in New Bedford, Massachusetts, with their sad, alcoholic father, Adam (an utterly convincing Will Patton), who shows his affection by stating “you both are the only good things I ever did”. It’s Christmas time and, despite the financial difficulties and occasional emotional instability, one can tell there’s love in that family. When Adam hits the bottom and is taken to rehab, the kids go spend the summer with their negligent mother, Eve (the director’s wife Karyn Parsons), becoming dangerously exposed to the cruelty and perversion of her boyfriend, Beaux (M.L. Josepher). Their rescue is Malik (Jabari Watkins), a local streetwise and self-proclaimed ‘outlaw and renegade’. But for the young girl, however, there’s the spirit of the jazz diva Billie Holiday, who visits and comforts her in the thorniest situations.

Shot with a poetic glow that easily conjures up the timeless feel of European classics (from Truffaut to Godard), this brave little film makes a clear statement without forcing sentiments to arise.

God Exists, Her Name is Petrunya (2021)

Direction: Teona Strugar Mitevska
Country: Macedonia

The opening shot of God Exists, Her Name is Petrunya, the fifth feature from Macedonian filmmaker Teona Strugar Mitevska (I Am From Titov Veles), struck us with its force and energizes us with the punk music that invades it. Also of an enormous strength is the film’s central character, Petrunya (Zorica Nusheva), a 32-year old unemployed historian who provokes a national scandal after impulsively taking part in a sacred traditional ceremony reserved only for men. 

The case involves both the church and the police directly as well as a frustrated female TV reporter (Labina Mitevska), who not only sees an opportunity to stand out but also to call the attention of the public for the country’s deeply ingrained misogyny and sexism. 

In parallel, the film portrays Petrunya’s toxic relationship with her unsupportive mother, Vaska (Violeta Sapkovska), who makes everything tenser. These mother-daughter brawls can easily slip from verbal to physical aggressions.

Mitevska, who collaborated with Elma Tataragic (Stitches; Snow) in the screenplay, based herself on a true story, assembling a promising satire whose whole fails to be greater than its uneven parts. It only pays off intermittently with some humorous insubordinations and the vision of furious, silly men hurt in their egos, but other scenes are unnecessarily spoiled by a clumsy playfulness or, like during its final stage, with a disordered arrangement that is anything but convincing.

My Heart Can't Beat Unless You Tell it To (2021)

Direction: Jonathan Cuatras
Country: USA

My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell it To, the remarkable debut feature from Colombian-American Jonathan Cuartas, is an indie family horror-drama piece built at the crossroads of the disturbing stillness of Yorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth and the urban, gothic tones of Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive. It stars Patrick Fugit (who also produces), Ingrid Sophie Schram, and Owen Campbell as three siblings who are forced to live according to a dark secret that must be kept in the family.

Dwight (Fugit) and Jessie (Schram) make enormous sacrifices in their lives - including killing people who won’t be missed - to keep their chronically sick younger brother, Thomas (Campbell), alive. The latter is a fragile, dependent vampire that feeds on blood and needs to be kept at home at all the times, away from the sunlight. However, he often implores to get out and claims he needs friends. On the other side, Dwight dreams of leaving the town and put an end to the nightmare, whereas the remorseless Jessie commands the gruesome operations with an iron fist.

This bleak, vicious tale is endued with compelling performances, a noteworthy cinematography by the director's brother Michael Cuartas, an ominously droning score by Andrew Rease Shaw, and a great soundtrack that includes Helene Smith’s I Am Controlled By Your Love, the R&B tune that inspired the title of the film and earns a bitter meaning in the context it plays. 

This is the type of vampire flick that works more at the psychological level and doesn’t need to show any fang to involve us in its bizarre, chilly atmosphere.

Days (2021)

Direction: Tsai Ming-liang
Country: Taiwan

The insipid long shots and minimalist ways of Malaysian-born Taiwan-based director Tsai Ming-liang has always required patience and tolerance from the viewers. His latest opus, Days, appealingly captures two solitary men in their daily routines with contemplative tones and a nearly speechless, deliberately unsubtitled approach. Peculiarly framed, the images are loaded with loneliness, sadness, pain and affection, speaking by themselves in a way that is real and clear. 

Ming-liang’s long-standing muse, the actor Lee Kang-sheng (their association started in 1992 with the great The Rebels of the Neon God) is Kang, a middle-class man who lives in an apartment in Hong Kong and undergoes treatment for his neck and back. He comes across Non (Anong Houngheuangsy), a younger Laotian immigrant living in Thailand and whose meticulous cooking we follow with curiosity. Their painful loneliness are momentarily interrupted when meeting in a Bangkok hotel room for an erotic massage, and then, silently sharing a meal at a local restaurant, just like two old pals. 

Although categorically artsy and observant in its details, the film is ridiculously long for what it intends to say, flirting with boredom. On the other hand, the subtle tension-release flux of this modern alienation (in which relentless background noises and occasional silences play a role) is disconcerting, and raw emotions can naturally emerge. Simultaneously mesmerized and exasperated, I struggled to reach the end, and I don’t believe the ones who say they didn’t. What I do believe, is that it’s hard to cope with this tremendous loneliness in a life dominated by mundane practices.

Oxygen (2021)

Direction: Alexander Aja
Country: France

Oxygen is by far the most interesting film of French helmer Alexander Aja (High Tension; Crawl), but it still struggles with a few aspects, especially in regard to the plot written by Christie LeBlanc. The film, technically inventive yet dramatically familiar, relies heavily on the performance of Mélanie Laurent (Inglorious Basterds; Beginners) as a locked up scientist who, without knowing her identity and experiencing both transient recollections from the past and psychotic episodes due to isolation, tries to survive inside a cryogenic chamber.

Assisted by a sophisticated computer interface called MILO (voice of Mathieu Amalric), the protagonist sets a series of attempts to contact the right people as the oxygen inside the cabin declines to dangerous levels. After figuring out what her name was, she comes to the conclusion she had a husband (Malik Zidi) and suspects someone has framed her. 

Some convoluted uncovering and unlikely behavior - how can you put on airs when you’re running out of oxygen? - put me a bit off, but there was this mental labyrinth against the clock and a super claustrophobic environment making me relatively tuned. Both the scenarios and the special effects are accomplished in a modest sci-fi flick.

The Disciple (2021)

Direction: Chaitanya Tamhane
Country: India

Evoking The Music Room by Satyajit Ray, The Disciple is an inwardly focused drama film about a conservative classical Indian musician, Sharad Merulkar (newcomer Aditya Modak), who struggles to reach the top as an artist. He tries to follow the steps of his aging guru (Arun Dravid), whom he takes a good care of, and his late father (Kiran Yadnyopavit), who almost forced him into singing. Both are accomplished performers in the Anwar music tradition. 

Although seeking inspiration in the exceptionally rare lectures of Maai (voice of Sumitra Bhave), an insightful and legendary musician, Sharad is not there yet, and he knows it. He lives haunted by the fear he will never reach that excellence in his artistic career, which makes him lose confidence in himself. He’s also very unbending in his musical ideas.

This slow-burning tale set in contemporary Mumbai is never deeply moving, but it does have some stinging truth in it. Visually accomplished, it feels and looks intensely personal. Yet, the sleep-inducing pace, repetitive sequences, and uninvolving ambience might strain the patience of some viewers. 

Sophomore writer/director Chaitanya Tamhane, who made his debut in 2014 with Court, continues to demonstrate qualities in his work. However, the long duration of the film and a somewhat soulless approach gives this lesson in life an extra bitterness.

The Paper Tigers (2021)

Direction: Quoc Bao Tran
Country: USA

The Paper Tigers is an entertaining, feel-good kung fu comedy. The feature debut from director Quoc Bao Tran makes for a perfect lazy Sunday rental in the spirit of the Karate Kid franchise, grabbing our attention with the dynamics of a simple script centered in three middle-aged men - Danny (Alain Uy), a divorced workaholic insurance agent; Jim (Mykel Shannon Jenkins), a demotivated boxing coach; and Hing (Ron Yuan of Mulan), a limping man on the plump side - all former kung fu prodigies and disciples of the honorable master Sifu Cheung (Roger Yuan - a real martial arts fight trainer).

Having abandoned the martial arts to have ‘normal’ lives, they reunite years later to avenge the murder of their master. First they have to deal with disrespectful young street punks and a ludicrous childhood rival, Carter (Matthew Page), but soon they reach a more powerful adversary, Zhen Fan (action director Ken Quitugua), a former pupil of their master who became a hitman. 

Being as much silly as likable, the film is an ode to the old school martial arts films, yet light on plot and characters. Bao Tran doesn’t avoid the formulaic but doesn’t forget the fun and the kinetics of a good fight.

Mostly shot in Seattle’s Chinatown, The Paper Tigers won’t make the day of Bruce Lee’s fans but, if nothing else, has its heart in the right place.

Enfant Terrible (2020)

Direction: Oskar Roehler
Country: Germany

Oskar Roehler’s Enfant Terrible puts its focus on the life of unconventional filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder, whose mundane pleasures and quest for love are portrayed here with undeniable panache. Fassbinder, remarkably impersonated by Oliver Masucci (Look Who’s Back; Never Look Away) in his most glorious role to date, was an irascible provocateur in life and in film. He never gave up on his dream to be among the greatest European directors, even after his first film, Love is Colder Than Death, a gangster film which he described as a remake of Raoul Walsh's White Heat, has been ridiculed. He could be a tyrant to the people working for him, and his homosexual relationships with actors had a tendency for the tragic.

His first obsession was Gunther Kaufman (Michael Klammer), a married black man who wanted to be in his films; the latter was followed by the restless Moroccan El Heidi ben Salem (Erdal Yildiz), the inspiration for and the lead in Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974); and then Armin Meier (Jochen Schropp), a former butcher turned actor whose performances were not so prominent. The film only stresses these three, but there were more, including women.

Although incomplete and unfluctuating in mood, this biographical film gathers sufficient material for us to understand the director’s controversial personality. Soaked in alcohol and drugs, Fassbinder always said he understood his film characters in everything they did wrong in life. This was probably his mea culpa talking, a consequence of that wild fury and coarse manners that characterized him.

Keeping the tension at a fever pitch, Roehler, who worked from a script by Klaus Richter (their second collaboration), mounted it with some decadently fascinating moments.

The Dry (2021)

Direction: Robert Connolly
Country: Australia / USA

In The Dry, two murder cases are solved by a celebrated federal agent who returns to his arid hometown, Kiewarra, twenty years after he has left in an emotional turmoil. Eric Bana gives more body than soul to this groomed law enforcer who, helped by an insecure local sergeant (Keir O'Donnell), investigates the recent murder suicide that implicates a childhood friend. Concurrently, he tries to decipher in his head what could have happened to his girlfriend back then, who was found dead in a river that is now parched. The two cases might be connected.  

A desperate small farming community, a bunch of aggressive and surreptitious suspects, successive lies and shady moves are part of a screenplay co-written by director Robert Connolly (Balibo) and Harry Cripps (Penguin Bloom), who adapted Jane Harper’s novel of the same name.

It’s better the idea than the execution since the film plays as an over-plotted murder-mystery with an anticlimactic outcome. What went wrong with this adaptation? It simply collapses under the weight of its tonally one-note developments and clunky narrative.

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.