Berlin International Film Festival — A–Z of films

Simón takes a loose approach to the narrative, letting the small dramas of family play out alongside larger ones, giving as much value to the transient pleasures of fresh peach juice and cooked snails as the tensions between siblings.

The way doubt starts to enter into everything we hear from any of the characters is subtly orchestrated.

Much of the film’s raw effectiveness is due to the young cast’s wisdom and effortless on-screen chemistry.

Although this film has no body count, it carries with it all the danger of an erotic thriller.

Densely packed as this film is, only so much can be squeezed into an hour and 47 minutes. Menkes succeeds, however, in delivering a pretty thorough primer.

Nagy and her screenwriters’ disciplined refusal to pursue grandiose storylines results in a well-earned sense of community.

A flinty film that never caters to easy imagery.

Inevitably, there is a slight air of the stage about this and an emotional gear change at the midway point doesn't quite feel fully earned but the actors so fully inhabit these roles that they carry you with them.

Gorbach presents war as an insidious and dangerous beast, prowling about the edges of people's lives, swiping at those who aren't directly involved just as easily as those who are.

Walker-Silverman is in no hurry to reach that encounter and he makes slipping into the rhythms of Faye's day a thing of gentle joy.

Martyrdom and bad wishing, casual cruelty and sweet despair reign in this realm.

The film could not be more Swiss if it were made out of chocolate, yet it feels real, organic, a natural expression of the world in which it is set.

The director offers perhaps the best visual representation of the word ‘kitsch’ cinema has recently seen

There’s a lot going on in Júlia Murat’s accomplished drama.

Transcendental is often a pretentious word, but Miyake’s cadenced, Ozu-reminiscent, directorial style has a talent for sensing tensions and charging shots with profound meaning and sereneness.