Edinburgh International Film Festival — A–Z of films

A film of refreshingly non-intertwining stories and nice characterisation.

Unfortunately, though all the performances are strong, there's simply not enough chemistry between the leads to make their struggle believable.

A well-executed tale of paranoia and insularity.

Very funny and very exciting.

All credibility and tension, manifested during the bulk of the film, is completely robbed at the final hurdle by a ludicrous ending.

Straightforward, unflashy direction... is counterbalanced by well-observed and nuanced performances.

The film's charm is the feeling of spontaneity and randomness.

An impassioned cine-tract.

This could almost be a laid back Palestinian expose of what is happening at the checkpoints, except it is made by an Israeli.

Control is a highly eclectic tableaux of darkness and humour, life and death, characters and incidents, supernatural and commonplace.

The violence is heavy going and the atmosphere constantly fraught with a growing sense of foreboding.

Darkly, grimly funny in places.

Isild Le Besco lets this film meander in repetitive and unrealistic ways.

Competently filmed and acted and, by all accounts, faithful to the novel, it’s the story itself that hinders Desert Of The Tartars as a piece of cinema.

An enjoyably quirky, thought provoking and, above all, thoroughly cinematic experience.

The film leaves many questions unanswered.

The ambiguity of the characters's motives makes for annoying false mystery in a soup of suburban corruption.

Debut director Liu Fendou has done a magnificent job.

Every cinematic trick in the book to make Hero's violence as sexy as a car commercial

It's almost hagiographic at times, with insufficient distance, or authorial comment present, to establish a distinction between the distorted, hateful, misogynistic views of the two men and those of the film and its creators.

The performances are flawless, the story laced with black humour.

Much of the impact of the film comes from cues, visual and aural, away from the action.

The performances are delightful.

Los Muertos has a certain cold beauty.

Rather than attempting to dissect the story, it is easier to surrender to the lyrical qualities, the poetry, exquisite cinematography and poignant music.

Bale's performance is superb, his devotion to the role scary.

A passionate, almost angry look at events often forgotten in world history.

Though the story does drag in a few places, so do the lives that the documentary endeavours to encapsulate.

The film has a huge heart.

It's a straightforward enough tale, given life and zest by the performances.

A good-looking, moderately distracting Korean riff on Blade Runner.

A film both extreme and tender, yet tremendously entertaining.

As an example of yuk cinema, this is a serious piece of work. There is no profound message, except that living alone with nature does your head in.

A bit biased.

The pace is slow, and at times lethargic.

An undulating account of one man's spirit and determination to make an impossibly idealistic vision a concrete reality.

What should have been a delicate, bittersweet comedy becomes a long-winded caper that fails to capitalise on its raw materials.

Made on a budget of $7000, this is an incredible achievement.

You know you're watching a dull movie when you begin to undress the female cast in your imagination, even if they're not that hot.

This is difficult, challenging viewing and a film of considerable bravery from Leigh and his performers.

The design of the film is straightforward and yet cleverly skewed.

Ye Lou's visual style is that of a photographer's romantic vision, yet without flair.

The editing is sloppy, the message blurred, or non-existent.

This is a study in solitude and to say the film is subtle is an understatement.

Peralta has a real talent for making historic and contemporary documentaries.

The characters are neatly drawn and believable.

Fails to deliver anything beyond the prodigious letting of blood.

Odoul's vision has a unique quality of strangeness and Bonnetblanc's performance is extraordinary.

What action exists is exciting.

Almost everything about the film just feels right.

It feels alienated by the nature of its concerns, as if locked in a fancy dress trunk.

Simultaneously comical and unsettling.

Through the use of quirky art work, animation, a barrage of facts and figures, plus an incredibly dry wit, Spurlock shines a light on America's attitudes to weight gain.

There's scarcely a moment to fault here.

Director Sudhir Mishra has taken on more than he can chew.

As coincidence after coincidence piles up the plot becomes somewhat predictable.

The film deviates from more caricatured tales of domestic brutality.

Trauma simply fails to engage the viewer's interest.

A lighthearted, slightly flimsy little film, which is funny and nicely executed.

The film lacks heart, although covers the ground adequately.

Violent Summer is not an epic wartime romance. It's a smaller, quieter film, reflecting people's motives, actions and truths.

The gritty, flickering, b&w picture looks really cool, but it doesn't capture anything of interest.

The performances have a depth and understanding that surpasses surface glamour.

An affectionate, touching piece.